Reset
by Crazyeight
Summary: "Who I am is not who I was. Who I was is who I became. But it's all changed now. Everything is different. Everything that was finished and old has started again. I only hope that my friends can help me this time..."
1. From the Beginning and Middle

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

A Digimon Tamers story by: Crazyeight

Chapter: 1/ From the Beginning and the Middle…Comes the End.

In the light of the rising morning, a young twelve-year old boy with light brown hair woke up. Slowly, carefully, and with great reluctance, he cracked his eyes open, only to shut them against the bright light that filtered through the glass, sliding door of his bedroom. He turned over onto the other side and buried himself in his blankets, determined to get as much rest as his crusty-feeling eyes desired.

"Takato Matsuki!" called the voice of his mother from downstairs. "You'd better be getting up! I'm not going to have you sleep the whole day away just because it's summer vacation!"

"I'm up! I'm up!"

Takato rose with a start, throwing off his blankets in the process. He rubbed at his eyes, yawning.

"Man. Why does she have to yell?" he muttered to himself as he collected his bearings. "Maybe she minored in it at school or something."

Takato was quick to berate himself for saying such a thing about his mother. He hated that. After all, she did a lot for him.

Sighing heavily, he swung his legs out onto the ladder of his bed and climbed down. Upon reaching the floor, he went over to his dresser and pulled out some clothes—a blue hoody, a white t-shirt to go underneath, alongside some tan shorts—and put them on. After he was done tugging on the hoody, he found his hand reaching up towards his hair, scratching around at it absently. Takato frowned.

_Am I missing something?_

He held the thought for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. He couldn't afford to dilly-dally around for too long.

_I'll bet Mom wants me to run some errands,_ he thought._ That's probably why she wants me up at…_ he checked the time. _…Eleven O'clock in the morning? Sheesh. Did I oversleep or what?_

Deciding that his mother was justified in her yelling, he raced towards the door, yanked it open and headed out. The door slammed shut behind him, leaving the room silent and empty.

Silent and empty, that is, save for a lone, drawing of a crimson dinosaur with a white stomach, crudely colored in, falling to the floor, just outside a spot of sun.

It looked as though it was going to be a nice day in the city of Shinjuku, Japan, Land of the Rising Sun.

**…**

"Sorry I'm up late," Takato called out apologetically upon reaching the first floor of his family's home. As he threw on his shoes, the smell of warm, freshly baked bread, the lifeblood of the family business (such as it was) reached his nose. He smiled, feeling greatly comforted by it.

"You'd better be," came the voice of his mother, Mei Matsuki, poking her head in from out of the kitchen. "I don't remember raising you to sleep in this late." She scowled at him to show how disappointed she was in him. Folding her arms over her chest she stepped into the room. "You must get it from your father. I want you waking up early from now on. There's no sense in having you getting up late when you go back to school in a few weeks. I know school only just let out, but it'll be good for you. Besides, you've been late to class enough times as it is."

"Don't worry, Mom," Takato smiled. "I won't be showing up late to class anymore. I've learned my lesson."

_…from standing outside the classroom one too many times,_ he finished in his head.

"So, what's going on?" he asked, putting the finishing touches on his shoelaces.

"Not too much. You missed the morning rush because you were being such a sleepyhead, so we're having a bit of a quiet moment. Your father's manning the cash register and I'm getting some more bread ready."

"Oh." Takato tilted his head to one side, somewhat confused. _I thought she needed…_

"But I _do_ have some things that I'd like for you to take care of for me," she added. Takato felt his shoulders sag slightly.

_Yep. I thought that was coming…_

Mei indicated that he was to follow her as she turned and entered the kitchen. Takato did as he had been bid. Upon reaching the counter, Mei picked up an envelope and handed it to the boy.

"I've called in a list of supplies that I need you to pick up for me. Mr. Sato will have it ready for you when you get to his store. And when you get back, I need you to make a delivery for me, since it'll be ready then. After that, you can go play with your friends, but I'd like for you to be back for the afternoon to help out."

"Sure thing, Mom," Takato nodded, accepting the envelope.

**…**

Takato grunted as he lugged the pair of grocery bags down the streets. It was a warm day out, perfect weather for hanging out with Kazu and Kenta at the playground or the park.

_If they're still there that is,_ Takato mused with a dry chuckle. _They never wait for me on anything._

Takato picked up his pace, eager to get things done as quickly as possible. He was almost home. Soon, he'd be able to…

Takato was brought out of his thoughts as something caught his eye. Turning, he saw a gray cloud floating through the air above him. Not directly so, but it was well within his line of sight.

Takato came to a stop and frowned.

_Um…unless I'm mistaken, it kind of looks like it's coming towards me._

"Whoa," began someone behind him. "That's weird."

Takato glanced over his shoulder towards a blonde-haired teen with the scruffy beginnings of a beard raising his cell phone to take a picture of the cloud. He had a beautiful girl standing next to him, eyeing the cloud with an amazed expression.

"What do you think it is?" she asked in an almost lazy fashion.

"Beats me," the older boy said. "Pretty weird though."

Takato turned his gaze back to the cloud. It was still getting closer. Its shape was very definite, appearing disk-like in appearance; nothing at all like the usual, wispiness that all clouds shared. And its movement seemed oddly purposeful.

_I'm just imagining things,_ Takato thought. _Yeah. That's it. _He chuckled and shifted the groceries in his hands. _Mom's always saying how I watch too much TV anyway._

A few more people were looking up at the cloud in fascination. Here and there, someone would point it out, but for the most part, everyone went on with their business.

_Well…clouds aren't really anything special,_ Takato thought.

He resumed walking, doing his best to ignore the cloud. However, his curiosity got the better of him, and soon enough his crimson eyes were drawn back up to the circular cloud.

_It…really does look like it's coming towards me… Doesn't it?_

As he watched, the cloud settled over him. Electrical sparks emerged from the cloud and two glowing _somethings—_eyes perhaps—emerged.

_"Tamer…"_ a dark, menacing voice whispered from the cloud.

"Ah!" Takato jumped backward, raising the groceries up to protect himself, and he bumped into the older teen that was behind him. For a second, there was a sound of electrical pops and then…nothing.

"You okay, little dude?" asked the blond, looking at Takato with concern.

"Ah…um…the…thing…" Takato waved one grocery-laden arm as best as he could towards the sky while his words spilled out incomprehensibly. The blond scratched the stubble on his chin, trying to figure out what he was saying.

"The _cloud!"_ Takato spat out finally. "Did you…?"

"Cloud?" The blond looked up in the direction that Takato was pointing at.

"He means the one you just took a picture of, honey," the girl at his side said sweetly.

"Oh! Right. _That_ cloud. Yeah, I dunno little dude. It's gone now."

Takato blinked and looked up.

_He's right. _Nothing but blue sky greeted his vision.

"But…it was just there a second ago. And it was…sparking!"

"Must be all this digital technology," chuckled the teen as he and the girl moved on, already bored. "It must be messing with the air."

"Maybe it's global warming," laughed the girl.

Takato frowned at their backs before finally shaking his head.

_This is nuts. I'm standing in the middle of the street talking about clouds. I'd better hurry up and get home. If I'm late making that delivery, Mom'll ground me for a week!_

**...**

In the darkness of the room, a control panel glowed; its light occasionally shifting as a pair of hands moved across its surface, inputting commands.

"Bio-emergence has been blocked," said a female voice belonging to a long-haired, readheaded woman from behind a visor covering her eyes. Her chair, sitting on a pedestal, swiveled, and another woman with shorter, light brown hair sitting behind her typed in a set of commands.

"Gathering data now."

From beneath the two, someone chuckled.

"There you go. Problem solved."

A lighter flicked open and closed as a blond-haired man wearing a suit and sunglasses turned, a smirk on his face.

"They never learn, do they?" He turned his face up towards monitors that surrounded the room, showing various images and incoming data. "Tally. Make sure that you send me all logs on this latest incident. I want to analyze it personally."

"Yes sir," replied the brunette from her chair.

"What?" asked a voice from the shadows. The blond turned towards another man, youthful looking in appearance with light brown hair, wearing a suit. "No congratulations, Yamaki?"

The blond frowned at the other man, but said nothing. Instead, he turned towards the room's exit and left. The youth smirked.

"Genius goes unappreciated yet again," he muttered sarcastically under his breath.

**…**

"…and Guardromon warp-digivolves to HiAndromon," crowed a brown-haired boy wearing a black visor triumphantly as he slapped a card bearing the image of a powerful, sleek-looking android on the ground. "Snap!"

"Oh mannn…" across from the visor-wearing child, a bespectacled boy slumped in defeat.

"Man Kenta," the visor-wearing boy said, grinning. "You are just so bad at this game. Have you had even _one_ win against me?"

"You're just a lousy winner," grumbled Kenta, gathering up his pile of cards.

"Hey, that's what it takes if you want to duke it out with the pros. And with the way you're going, you'll be out by the first round. Unlike me, who'll be going straight to the top!"

The boy struck a triumphant pose, but Kenta still glowered at him, sharing none of the enjoyment that his friend had.

"Well, even with that HiAndromon card, the Digimon Queen will still beat you."

The boy lost his pose and frowned at his friend. "And like I've been telling you, she's just never met her match. And you know what? _I'm_ the one who's going to do it."

"You're all talk, Kazu…"

"What did you sa—?"

"Hey guys!"

Both boys turned at the voice to find Takato Matsuki entering the hut they were playing in and hoist himself up.

"Hey Chumley," grinned Kazu. "How's it hangin'?"

"About the usual," Takato replied with a nervous chuckle as he slung the backpack he was carrying onto the floor. "Sorry I'm late. I had to take care of some chores at home."

"That's what you get for having a family that owns a bakery. So, are you up for a match? I'm bored beating Kenta around."

Takato nodded, still smiling. "Sure. But I won't go down easily."

Kazu rubbed a finger across his upper lip, hiding a smirk.

"Just because you found that combo doesn't mean that you'll beat me. I've got some new stuff I've been waiting to try on you ever since the last time." He glanced sharply at Kenta. "And don't you say anything!"

Kenta shrugged, smiling. "I wasn't gonna. I want to see you wipe that smirk off his face too."

Takato's face fell at his friends words. "Hey, c'mon you guys. It was just dumb luck…"

"Yeah, but you've been lording it over us like you're better than us or something." Kazu crossed his arms over his chest. "I think it's time you've been rumbled."

Kenta raised an eyebrow. "Don't you mean 'humbled'?"

"Eh. Same difference. So, are we going to go, or what?"

"Sure," said Takato, pulling out a shoebox from his bag. "Just let me get my deck."

As he popped open the box, he thought, for a moment, that he saw something blue shine from within the box. Takato frowned as he lifted the lid and paused, confused. Kazu watched him with a bit of impatience.

"Hey, are you growing roots or something? Hurry up already!"

"Huh?" Takato blinked and looked up first at Kazu and then back at the shoebox. There was nothing blue inside save for the borders of the cards marked 'Digimon', and not a single one of them shone. "Oh, right. Sorry."

"Man," Kazu remarked as Takato pulled out cards and began to shuffle them together. "You've been pretty weird lately, Chumley. And I mean more than the usual. There's no way you'll be able to win the tournament if you keep losing yourself like this. Not that you stood a chance to begin with…"

Takato felt a light blush crawl across his face, but he forced a smile on his face.

"Hey, if you want to hear about weird, you should have seen the cloud I saw today."

"Clouds?" Kazu rolled his eyes and looked at Kenta. "This guy's crazier than you are, Kenta."

"At least he wins better than you," Kenta scowled.

"But he's still crazier." Kazu turned back towards Takato. "So? What's so 'weird' about this cloud you saw?"

"Well…it moved…"

Neither Kazu or Kenta looked impressed.

"All clouds do that, Dumbley. Try again?"

_Dumbley?_

"Hey! I mean it! It was…well…" A light bulb flickered on inside his head as Takato realized some clarification was required. "I mean, it was 'moving' towards me, like it was seeking me out. Also, it had weird electrical sparks coming out of it, and it had large, glowing eyes and…and it _spoke!"_

"What?" Kazu looked at his friend disbelievingly. "Okay, you are definitely getting to be too much, Chumley. First you tell us about this bizarre dream you had about your girlfriend…"

Takato's face burned as the blood rushed to his face.

"I do _not_ have a girlfriend!" he protested. Kazu rolled his eyes.

"Right. 'Dream girl' then. Whatever. And then you showed up that one day wearing goggles…"

Takato's hand shot up to his forehead. _That's what I forgot!_ he realized, but he could not dwell upon the revelation for very long.

"Hey, c'mon. That was just a _very_ realistic dream, okay?"

"That's because you made your own 'water bed'," Kazu snickered, elbowing Kenta. If Takato's face was not already flaming, it was surely setting forest fires by now.

"Would you guys just listen to me for a second? Hey!"

"All right, all right," Kazu relented. "So what's the big deal about this cloud. It's sparked. So what? Jeremy says he knows a kid who's obsessed with the number seven. That doesn't sound as weird, but it's definitely something that sounds real."

"I'm not making this up," grumbled Takato. "A guy took a picture of it with his girlfriend."

"Did he give you the picture?"

"Uh…" Takato froze. "…no?"

"Okay then." Kazu gave his friend a sympathetic smirk. "Maybe you should write this stuff down, Chumley. You'd make a good storyteller."

Takato threw his hands up in disappointment. "I don't know why I tell you guys stuff anymore. You never believe me."

"Hey," cried Kenta anxiously. "We believe you." He looked at their mutual, visor-wearing friend. "Don't we?"

Kazu shrugged. "Maybe if he gets proof…"

"Let's just play the game," Takato muttered irritably, shuffling his deck together and placing it on the floor. Kazu grinned and did likewise.

"Prepare to get stomped by the master," he crowed as they drew their first cards.

**…**

Takato trudged his way down the street, having said his goodbyes to his friends. He felt a little disappointed, having lost—and lost badly—to Kazu's HiAndromon.

_Where'd he get the money to afford _that_ card,_ Takato wondered absently, but his heart wasn't in solving the mystery. Kazu wasn't the richest or the luckiest, but sometimes he could get what he needed. He had the aggressive attitude for making successful trades for some fairly rare cards. All he needed was someone dumb enough to take him up on one.

Just like he himself was.

_He wouldn't have stood a chance if I had Guilmon in my deck,_ he thought with a touch of pride, but he laughed at himself dismissively. _Only…it's too bad Guilmon isn't a real card and is just a digimon I made up. But if I had him… _Takato's smile grew to great lengths as he thought about the possibilities. _Bull's Eye, baby!_

_Today was too short,_ he thought, peering around the city streets. But he knew that was what he got for sleeping in late.

And, he knew, if he didn't hurry up and get home, tomorrow would result in pretty much the same thing, only this time getting saddled with tons of chores rather than sleeping in.

_Caluuu…_

Takato was about to pick up his pace when he heard the sound…a cry perhaps? Takato paused in mid-step and turned around, raising an eyebrow. There was nothing there however.

_Well, except for the people,_ he thought, but a quick look over the passersby didn't show anyone making any odd noises or cries. Takato scratched the back of his head in bemusement before resuming his trek towards home. His gaze fell upon the sight of the Shinjuku government building, the twin towers at its top standing ominously.

He watched them for a moment as he walked, feeling strangely interested in them. The moment broke however as he bumped into someone.

"I'm sorry!" he quickly apologized, immediately backing up and bowing his head. "I wasn't watching where I was going and I…uh…huh?"

Takato looked up, surprised that he wasn't being yelled at for his clumsiness. Inwardly, he was already beating himself over the head for being too used to his teacher, Ms. Asagi's view of him.

The man that he had bumped into turned to look at him, but did no more than that. There was an odd look on his face that seemed, at first glance, almost empty, but was instead something else.

_Is he lost?_ Takato wondered, tilting his head to one side questioningly. The man turned to face him fully, mimicking his movement. Takato felt just a tad bit creeped out. The way that the man was looking at him… It suddenly made every warning that his parents gave him about approaching strangers seem grounded.

Takato pulled his eyes away from the man's with great effort, not liking the way he was looking at him, and instead focused on the yellow jacket that he wore. It wasn't a good color, but at this point _anything_ was preferable.

Takato blinked as the man turned and disappeared into the flow of the crowd. Breathing a sigh of relief, Takato decided to do likewise.

_I think it's time that I went home now,_ he thought.

* * *

><p>AN: So I've made tremendous progress on my story and am now very close to finishing. As a result, I thought I'd relax a bit and post an idea that I've recently thought up. It won't eclipse Tamers Requiem when I get back to it, and for the time being updates will remain few and far between. The easy part of writing the story is almost done. The hard part of editing it is soon to start.

Questions about this story/chapter? Comments? Feel free to shoot them to me, though I can't guarantee that I'll be able to give a full response on account of spoilers. Until the next time. :P

-Crazyeight


	2. Assembling the Players

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 2/ Assembling the Players

_A blast of dust and a gust of wind flashed across his body, forcing Takato to hold onto the guard rail to keep from being blown away. After what felt like an eternity—but was really nothing more than a couple seconds—the wind died down, leaving the brown-haired boy to breathe a sigh of relief and amazement._

_ "Nice entrance…"_

_ He looked ahead of him. Fog obscured his vision, but he could scarcely make out the vague outline of something reptilian behind it. _

_"So hard to see…" Takato leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. "Well? Is it? It looks like him!"_

_ There was some mild snorts and woofs—or something closely approximating such. As the fog began to clear up, Takato's crimson eyes widened in amazement. Before him, still slightly hidden behind the fog, was a large crimson reptile, seated on the ground._

_ "It…is him. Wow! He's perfect!"_

_ There was another bout of agitated, almost baby-like noises and the creature wiped at his nose, as though something was bothering him. He flexed his toe claws and scratched one arm experimentally, his tail lightly tapping the ground. The creature looked ahead of him with wide, gold-colored eyes that expressed nothing but utter wonder for the world he found himself in. As Takato descended down the staircase, preparing to introduce himself, he smiled. This was it. This was the beginning of everything. The beginning of…_

_ "…change, Takato?"_

_ Hearing a familiar, yet oddly distorted voice, Takato turned to find a brown-haired girl that he knew. Jeri Katou. She wore a simple green dress over a yellow shirt and a small sprig of hair was tied off into a solitary side ponytail. The hand puppet that she usually wore was pointing at him, looking almost…disturbingly hungry. Takato looked away and up towards Jeri._

_ In that instant, he wished that he just kept looking at the puppet._

_ She was taller than he remembered, but still more or less looked the same. Her eyes were dull and seemingly lifeless, but her lips held a cruel smirk that was very much unlike the kind, gentle one that he saw at school and occasionally visiting his family's bakery. They drew up, baring abnormally white teeth as her eyes changed from their usual amber to a sinister, glowing red._

_ "Subject: Takato," Jeri said in her strangely, computer sounding voice. "It is all your fault." Her smirk changed then, becoming softer. Her eyes became more gentle, almost understanding. "But that's all right," she continued. "Mistakes can be deleted."_

**…**

The visage of the dream passed quickly, with no recollected transition to the waking world. Takato blinked as he lay there in bed. He turned his head over to where his hand sat, spread open as though it should have been clutching something. He flexed his fingers.

_I'm alive,_ he thought, though for some reason he couldn't fathom why that felt so important to him. Getting up, he crawled out of bed and climbed down. He looked around his bedroom, his eyes falling first on the Agumon statue before wandering to his drawing of Guilmon.

The image from his dream came to him and he tilted his head to one side curiously.

_He looked…so real. Much more than I imagined he'd be. _He walked over to the drawing and picked it up. _And where did he get that bizarre hazard sign on his chest? I didn't draw that._

He looked his roughly colored drawing over just to be sure. Red ink spilled over into the white stomach, but otherwise it was void of any foreign markings. Pulling back his chair he sat down, and picked up a pencil. He set it to the drawing and did a brief sketch of the hazard sign on Guilmon's belly and sat back, considering his handiwork.

_Well, it's not 'good' I guess, but it looks kind of cool. I wonder why I dreamt it like that though._ He scratched his hair groggily. _But then, my dreams have been kind of weird lately. First that weird, red-haired girl and now Guilmon and Jeri. What's next? Rabbits?_

Takato shook his head. As for Jeri… He couldn't figure out why he dreamt her the way he did. He knew she was…odd, in her own, rather cute way (he found himself blushing a little at the thought), but he wasn't afraid of her, or her sock puppet. They were part of what made her 'her'.

_Maybe it's some kind of psycho-whatsis thing that they're always talking about on TV._ He thought about it for a moment before chuckling quietly to himself, ruffling his hair in embarrassment. _Or maybe I'm just going crazy. Yeah, that's probably it. Better not tell Kazu and Kenta. They'd probably start going on about that 'girlfriend' thing again and tell Jeri about it. That's the last thing that I need._

**…**

"Here we are," said Kazu, his voice dark and serious, as though he were a general surveying a battlefield. In a way, he was. He cast his eyes about the vast expanse of the room, seeing the multitude of that crowded it. Some of them were around their age. Others were younger. A few were of the older generation. Some laughed, others looked about timidly. A fair amount though carried themselves in a manner that suggested confidence and danger. All were busy sorting through a deck of cards that they held in their hands.

Digimon cards.

"Oh yeah," breathed Kazu, nodding his head with a smirk. "We're totally going to own this crowd." He glanced at Kenta, who was standing beside him. "Well, actually _I'm_ going to own this bunch. You'll probably lose in the first round."

"Hey!" exclaimed Kenta, looking at him, his brows stabbing downward angrily.

"Chill out, Kenta. At least you'll be able to root for me from the sidelines. You _and_ Chumley both…if he ever gets here that is."

"Where is Takato?" asked Kenta, looking around. "You don't think he got lost, do you?"

"Chumley?" Kazu snorted. "That guy can _never_ get lost. He probably just woke up late and had to take care of all his chores."

"If you say so…" Kenta gave his friend a worried look. "Don't you think one of us should call him though?"

"Uh…dude? He doesn't have a cell phone? Neither do we for that matter, and I'm not forking over any yen for a payphone. He'll get here."

Kenta gave his friend a disbelieving stare. Kazu looked away and folded his arms over his chest, uncomfortable.

"Look. You know how Chumley is. It doesn't matter if the world is going to fall apart or anything. If he has to get somewhere, he'll try to get there. Guaranteed. So, unless the world has already ended, he'll find a way here. So just chill out, relax, and try not to think about how badly you're going to get creamed today."

"Okay," sighed Kenta. "I just hope Takato's all right."

"Yeah," laughed Kazu. "It'd suck if he missed out on my crowning moment of awesomeness."

**…**

_Oh, man! I'm late! I'm late! I'm late! I'm _late!

Card box in hand, Takato's green sneakers pounded down the city sidewalks as he evaded the swarm of people with a grace that those who knew him had to see in order to believe. Urgency, it had to be admitted, led a certain brilliance to his movements. In all his years, his mother often claimed that he didn't think enough, and that was why he had trouble fitting in or messing things up. His father, however, was of the opposite opinion: Takato thought too _much._ This would, of course, lead to a (rather playful) argument between the two adults that such a belief was hardly indicative of anything, as Mei often berated Takehiro for hurting his head every time he thought—and Takato _was_ Takehiro's son.

All kidding aside, Takehiro's claim had some merit to it. Takato had the unfortunate, or rather fortunate (depending on one's perspective) knack for thinking about the consequences of his actions. Barring the odd moment common to growing up, Takato was raised to be considerate of others and how his actions might affect them. For the most part, he followed the line he was set on. With the exception of Ms. Asagi, who didn't take to his consistent late arrivals to class, he was described as a good student whose head needed to come out of the clouds. He was a dreamer, and more so than he ought to be during waking hours. This by itself wasn't so bad, if not for one other knack he had. One that would further cement his need to think about his actions.

His mouth and brain operated at two entirely different, and constantly shifting speeds.

More often than not, especially during stressful situations, whenever Takato found himself 'caught', such as when he would get called on for a question that he wasn't paying attention to, his mouth and mind would find themselves spinning to resolve a dilemma. The result was his mouth would say either the first or last thing that came to mind either before or after it had discovered a more logical response.

As a result, he often got into trouble without even meaning to.

Here and there though, there were odd spots of stress where thought and body were one, and he moved and spoke with an ease that would be brilliant, if not for his woeful lack of experience in such moments. For the moment, his body moved with ease and his attention was laser focused on the problem at hand.

_Gotta go! Gotta go! Gotta go! Gotta…_

At least right up until a road block stepped in front of him.

Takato's eyes bulged in their sockets as he attempted to spin out of the way, but there was just no avoiding the person as he stepped out of an alleyway without warning. Not even a Renamon would have been able to avoid him. His grace lost, Takato smashed into the man's leg—his last second spin doing at least that much good, preventing him from barreling headlong into the man's body—and planted his butt harshly on concrete, the top to his card box flying open. Takato hissed in pain from the brutal, stinging impact, but he was already pushing it out of his mind, looking up at the man that he nearly knocked over.

Takato stopped for a moment upon seeing the yellow jacket that the man wore. His eyes rose to find a familiar, blank-looking face that seemed to be lost no matter where he was looking down at him.

_Are those the same clothes he was wearing yesterday?_ thought Takato but he brushed the thought aside as he scrambled up to his feet.

"I'm so sorry!" Takato exclaimed, bowing, desperately trying to apologize. "I should have been taking care to…"

"You…"

"…look out where I was going and…uh… What?" Takato looked up at the man with a raised eyebrow. He didn't look angry at all. In fact, he was just pointing at him, his eyes widening just a little.

"You," the man in the yellow jacket repeated in a firmer voice. His eyes seemed to lose a little of the lost look that they held, and for a moment—a moment that went unnoticed to Takato—a barely visible wisp of smoke rose from his finger, disappearing into thin air.

"Uh…sir? Are you okay?" Takato was starting to feel even more worried than he had been a second ago. But the man just shook his head and stepped forward. Reflexively, Takato took a step back and…

"Oof!"

"Hey!" snapped an angry sounding voice. "Watch it!"

Spinning around, Takato had yet another apology starting on his lips, but they died upon seeing the girl standing in front of him, violet eyes smoldering as they zeroed in on him. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, and she wore simple jeans and a white, turtleneck T-shirt with turquoise sleeves and a purple, broken heart symbol emblazoned on the front. Her rather elegant looking eyebrows seemed to stab daggers at him, and unconsciously Takato felt himself want to take a step backward to protect himself. However, such was his surprise and amazement that the feeling did not so much as make him move an inch.

After all, it's not often that one meets their 'dream girl'.

"It's you…" he whispered, the man in the yellow jacket already long forgotten. "I saw you in my dream."

The girl's eyes narrowed into even angrier slits, if that was even possible. Spinning on her heels, she tossed a spiteful look over her shoulder.

"Creep," she said heatedly before storming off.

"Hey, wait!" Takato began, holding out one hand to stop her, but it was too late, she was already rapidly disappearing into the crowd. Slapping one hand on his forehead, he scowled. "No way, it can't be!"

Shaking his head, he adjusted his deck box—snatching its top from off the ground—and started moving again. As he walked, his gaze drifted over the crowd, quickly spotting the girl by her rather obvious ponytail. He furrowed his brow.

_This is nuts. There's no way that girl can be the same one that I saw in that dream. I mean, sure it was a weirdly realistic dream complete with rain and everything, but…but… Nah. That's just plain nuts. People have dreams all the time and sometimes they come true. It's like playing a lottery. Sometimes you win…right?_

Takato had the distinct feeling that he was only kidding himself, but what else could it be?

After all, it's not as though he could predict the future.

**…**

A red dot slowly made its way across the screen, only to be met by a distinct, white triangle. The triangle impacted with the red dot and both vanished from the screen.

"And another one is prevented from getting through," smirked the youthful, suit-wearing man, gleefully looking at the multitude of monitors. The two women swiveled in their chairs above him, busily typing away on their keyboards.

"Confirmed," said the red-haired woman. "All data has been completely destroyed. There is no evidence of the digimon attempting to reconstitute itself."

"Gathering information for storage and analysis now," intoned Tally as her fingers input the commands. The youth nodded and pushed a hand into a pocket.

"I so love it when a plan comes together," he grinned, looking up at the two women. "So, either of you two lovely ladies have any spare time for tonight?"

"Uh…sir?" Tally stammered from behind her visor while the red-haired woman—Riley—looked at him incredulously. The youth waved a hand in a joking manner.

"Just kidding. Anyway, I'm heading out for a spell. Be sure to send the data on up to Yamaki for review. I've got some reviewing of my own to catch up on."

Turning, the youth exited the darkened room and out into a hallway of light. He basked in its presence, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Ah…light. It's been…far too long." He wandered over to a nearby window and placed his hand on it, his eyes narrowing and his smile disappearing from off his face. "I've been in the dark for too long."

He stood there for a moment before stuffing both hands in his pockets.

"All right," he said, sniffing loudly. "Enough of the drama. There's still business to attend to. I think it's time to see the sites and brainstorm."

* * *

><p>AN: Another chapter of Reset for you guys to read. Mostly small stuff, but Takato meets up with Rika again, and the meeting…was slightly less violent than their actual first encounter. Other than that, not too much to say about this chapter. 'Till next time.

Edit: In a previous chapter, the issue of the time frame came up. For the record, this story takes place during the month of July for the Tamers during what would otherwise be their first year as a team. Based on on-screen evidence from the episode 'Snakes, Trains, and Digimon', this would be roughly around the time of the Deva arc, and just before the first movie.

-Crazyeight


	3. Hidden Threats

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 3/ Hidden Threats

The man in the yellow jacket shook his head as he pressed one hand against it. The lost look that Takato had noticed returned, and he furrowed his brow.

_You…_

He looked up, following the path of the brown-haired boy—and by proxy, the red-haired girl as well—and winced. Pain flared behind his temples. Something about the boy and girl…something about them was…familiar, but for the life of him, he could not tell why that was.

_I…have never seen them before,_ he thought.

That assertion felt oddly false to him for some reason. There was, however, a lack of any definite proof. He honestly could _not_ recall a single thing about the children. The same held true for a number of things in fact. He could not remember anything at all.

He looked up at the sky, narrowing his eyes against the bright sun. Between the moment that he woke up in the midst of an apartment with a computer in it and whenever he was born, there lay untracked miles of blanks. It was as if everything about his life had been deleted.

"Ugh…" he pressed a hand against his forehead again as new pain assaulted him. Pressing onward, he decided to keep moving, hopefully find something. The boy had already forgotten about him, intent as he was on the girl for some reason. His behavior toward her was…odd to say the least. As he made his way down the street, conveniently in the same direction as they, he caught the boy sneaking the odd look at the girl. Was he following her?

_I'll never understand humans and their mating habits,_ he mused absently before catching the thought. Raising an eyebrow, he stirred the thought around in his mind for a moment, picking it apart. Passing a nearby store window, he looked at himself in the mirror. He was clean shaven with short, light brown hair. There was a bit of a pudge in his belly, and he pressed a hand against it uncertainly, but other than the small differences he had he looked human, just like everyone else that was around him.

_That's right,_ another thought spoke. _Humans all tend to look different. It's rare to find no variation between them, physically._

There it was again. That _alien_ sounding use of the word _human,_ as if he were somehow different from them, and that on some instinctive level he knew that. But, that couldn't be…could it? Here he was, looking like them after all…

His stomach growled ever so slightly, and a new pain—only it wasn't quite a pain at all—came to him. Something empty and gnawing within his stomach.

_Hunger._

_ I need to find something to eat._

Disregarding the two children, the man in the yellow jacket began to search for a restaurant from which to satisfy his empty stomach.

**…**

His name was Takou Yamasaki. The young man in the suit that is. It was clearly written on the front of his office door. An office door that belonged to the secret government organization known as Hypnos.

_An organization that now owes everything to me._ Takou smiled smugly. He pushed open the door and entered it, undoing his tie in the process. He loosened the neck noose and tossed it on the back of his chair. It was quickly followed by his jacket. It wasn't professional by any means.

_Yamaki would probably throw a fit if he saw me now,_ he thought with more than a little amusement. _But what do I care? If it weren't for me, this ship would be sinking right now and the Devas would be tearing up this city on top of it._

He stared out the window over the city, his expression becoming a bit grim. What was the date today?

_The third of August,_ he thought, glancing at the calendar on the wall. A little low tech, but he liked it that way. _Around this time, the Tamers would be fighting…Vajramon and Pajiramon, was it? The ox and sheep Deva anyway._

That sounded about right.

_All right. Enough of this. Better get what I came here for and get going. I may be the new golden child for this organization, but that doesn't mean I can take all my time outside enjoying the city. I still need to be back at a decent hour for the rest of my shift._

He smiled and snatched up a small, personal computer that fit easily in his hand. To the untrained eye, it looked like a glasses case, though he never needed such to begin with.

_Not that I need a computer either, but it makes for a much more convincing cover._

He quickly exited the building, and within short order, he was outside, basking in the warmth of the July sun. He already had his destination in mind, and as long as he was quick, he could get there and be back before he was missed.

_Shinjuku Park, here I come._

**…**

Takato wasn't able to get the red-haired girl out of his mind even if he tried. The whole idea that the girl he had dreamed was a real person was…unsettling, to say the least. He couldn't wrap his mind around it, nor could he just excuse it as just a mere coincidence.

_That dream was just too real,_ he remembered, watching the girl as she made her way down the street, looking as though the world around her did not exist. As she came to a stop in front of a crosswalk, Takato tilted his head to one side. She looked exactly as she did in the dream. The same style, the same walk, the same look in her eyes (what little he could see from this angle)…everything was exactly as he saw it in his dream.

_Well, minus the trench coat,_ he thought, furrowing his brow together in curiosity. _Seriously, what was she doing going for a walk in the rain? And so late at night too. What would her parents have done if she got kidnapped by aliens or something?_

There was his runaway brain again, making up a ridiculous situation. Takato shook his head.

_Mom's right. I really need to lay off the TV for a while. And maybe put away the cards too. My grades haven't been too good this year. They're better than Kazu's, but still. I should be doing better than this._

He came to a stop at the crosswalk, his mind in a cloud.

_What am I even doing, going to this tournament? I know that I've gotten better, and that I told Kazu that he'd have to beat me to win, but…do I even stand a chance? Kazu's got that HiAndromon card and I still haven't completed my Agumon set. Plus there'll be all kinds of really powerful players there and I really should be home studying…_

Takato scowled. He was doing it again. He was over thinking a situation when he should just be having fun. It was _summer!_ He should be enjoying himself!

Takato lowered his head and sighed heavily.

_ On the other hand…_

The light on the other side of the road changed, signaling that it was now safe to walk. Takato raised his head and pressed forward, full of determination.

_Whatever. It's summer. I'm going to have fun today. I'll study when I get home!_

Takato pumped a fist into the air as he crossed. A second later, he frowned in confusion.

_Hey… Where'd that girl go?_ Takato took a quick look around before shrugging. _Well, maybe she went home. That dream was probably nothing anyway…_

**…**

Rika was just a bit irritated.

It had taken her until the boy was practically right next to her to even notice him, something which surprised her. Over the past two years she had picked up a talent for dodging stalkers. Not that she dealt much with stalkers that is, but the fact that her mother was a high-priority target for the media had a lot to do with this, as they tried to capture her image whenever they got the chance. The fact that Rika herself had created an instant media sensation by winning two major Digimon card tournaments two years in a row helped inflate this even more. The newest _Nonaka Star Rising_ as one newspaper proclaimed._ But will she follow in her mother's footsteps?_

She originally had rejoiced at having her talent acknowledged by the world at large. Now she could only rage silently as the loss of her privacy. It had cooled off in recent months, and it seemed as though she was finally getting her life back. Not that it stopped her from getting the odd love letter of course. As a matter of fact, she received one little more than a week ago, replete with flowery language, compliments, proclamations of undying love, and hope that they could be something more in the future. Rika's eyes narrowed dangerously as she glared at the brunette. Now it seemed that she possibly—_possibly_—had found the source of that love letter. After all, who else would have the nerve to call her something like 'dream girl'?

She pulled her face up into a grimace as she watched the boy start to pull away from her, their roles reversed now. She didn't intend to follow him, she had a tournament to go to, but she wanted to be out of his sight until he went wherever it was he was going.

_He seems dumb enough,_ she thought._ He only looked around once and he didn't even bother to see me slip behind him. This should be easy._

Rika took a mental backseat as she made her way through the crowd, hands stuffed in her pockets.

She was really looking forward to the tournament.

**…**

_Shinjuku Park… Here I am._

Takou looked around him with a wistful expression on his face. All around him lay green grass and even greener trees. A chain link fence sat just off to his side, separating him from a small baseball field.

_Just as I remember it. Only…I don't know._ _Fresher. _Takou reached out and wrapped his fingers within the fence._ Not as well worn out. _He glanced at an odd rust stain. _Or maybe it was always like this and I just never noticed._

It struck Takou that it had been a long time since he had last been in Shinjuku Park; far longer than he cared to count.

_I had so much fun here in my youth. Where did the time go?_

His right eye twitched ever so slightly as he noticed movement at his feet. The dusty path carved by the many thousands of feet that trod upon it was quivering a little. Small specks of sand began to rise into the air, swirling about each other like miniature tornados. Only there wasn't so much as a breeze strong enough to even remotely disturb the dust at the moment.

_Oh yeah,_ he thought, in response to his own unspoken question._ That's right._

A small beep came from one pocket and Takou pressed one hand against it urgently. The beeping stopped. Reaching into his other pocket, he withdrew his miniature computer and opened it. He immediately began pressing buttons and a download bar appeared on the screen. He glanced down anxiously at the dust. It was swirling even faster now, becoming larger. It was up to his ankles, and rapidly climbing to his knees. He returned his gaze back to the screen. It showed a status bar of approximately eighty percent on its transmission. He smiled.

_More than enough time._

The status bar hit one hundred, and within short order the dust settled, floating back down to the ground. He sighed in relief.

_This is going to be rather tough,_ he thought. _Even if the digimon and the digignomes don't come through, this world is still vulnerable to their influence. Theirs and our own that is. I need to be more vigilant. I'll have to contact my superiors about this; let them know that Shinjuku hasn't 'settled' yet, and that it may have to be sterilized. And that means one thing._

He turned his face up towards the skyline, his brow furrowing.

_ I may need to look into what Takato Matsuki is doing._

**…**

A/N: A bit of a shorter chapter this time around, but there's a little bit more to advance the story. The man in the yellow jacket and the now named Takou are going to be moving things along a bit more. On another note, in my last A/N I mentioned how the episode 'Snakes, Trains, and Digimon' took place in August. After a recent viewing of said episode, I noticed I was one month off, and I edited the end notes to reflect that. The story however, for its purposes, is set in the month of August, which is when Japan schools tend to celebrate their summer vacations. As for the bit with the date Vajramon and Pajiramon's attacks, I just took a creative liberty as I couldn't recall a date being mentioned or shown.

Until next chapter.

-Crazyeight


	4. Stop and Go

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 4/ Stop and Go

Takou glanced at his wrist watch idly.

_My absence has most likely been noticed,_ he thought, lowering his arm and stuffing his hand into his pocket. _But considering all the work I've done, I think they'll let this one slide._

Putting on a smile, he stepped forward, and with a slide of an automatic door he was inside the Matsuki bakery. The smell of warm bread and the sight of sunny smiles hit him. Well, that was far from accurate. From his perspective, it was more like sunbathing, but all the same it felt like an impact. His expression became almost melancholic as he looked around the bakery, from the customers to Mei Matsuki as she rang them up, thanking each and every one of them for their patronage.

_How nostalgic,_ he thought, moving over to the pastry section to see what kind of delectable's they had on sale. Crispy, sugar coated buns stood out rather prominently, among others, and Takou repressed the urge to lick his lips expectantly. _But there's something missing._

Of course, he knew full well what that was.

"Good day, and thank you," waved Mei cheerily to another customer, and she turned towards him. "Hello. Can I help you with something?"

"Hm?" Takou glanced at her with raised eyebrows. After a moment, he gave a mirthful chuckle and scratched at his rather unruly hair. "Thanks, but I'm just browsing for a bit. Don't mind me."

"All right," smiled Mei. "Let me know if you need anything."

Takou nodded, his expression falling a little as she looked away and, as subtly as she could without being seen by her potential customer, knuckled her back, trying to work out its kinks.

_Long, long hours of standing at that counter,_ Takou thought, and his feet quivered at the thought. _That sure brings back memories._

"Hey," he spoke up, breaking the quiet. "This is a nice store. Do you and your husband run it together?"

Mei looked at Takou, a little surprised by the question, but she smiled again.

"Well...yes, you could say that. Though sometimes it feels like I run the store and he's just the hired help."

"Heh. Every home has its odd quirks. But I guess that's why this place looks as good as it does." Takou passed through the aisles, looking over the innumerable types of bread, in all of its various shapes and sizes. There were classic styles and the odd attempt at creating something new. "Sorry if I'm speaking so familiarly. It's just…I was kind of raised in a bakery myself when I was a kid. I didn't live in one, but I spent a lot of time working in one before I moved on to college. These kinds of places speak to me, I guess you could say."

"I…see." Mei looked a little uncomfortable. Embarrassed perhaps? Takou wasn't sure. It was hard to read the woman sometimes. "Where did you work?"

"On a street like this," replied Takou absently. "I can't remember the name anymore. There was a lot of renovation over the years and the store…well, there was something of a change in management at one point, I guess you could say."

The melancholic look was back in his eyes. "But the people that worked there were almost always happy. 'Almost'. There aren't any 'happily-ever-after' stories." He smiled at Mei. "In my opinion."

He laughed, feeling a little embarrassed about his rambling. "Sorry," he said apologetically, rubbing the back of his head. "I do sometimes go on. I haven't thought about my youth in a long time. I feel old."

Mei's face took on a false, insulted expression. "You're hardly an autumn chicken."

Takou had to school his face from looking shocked at her words. Instead he chuckled again.

"Well, the kids these days and all their high tech gadgets make me feel otherwise. The changes that have happened in only ten years…it makes me feel so out of touch."

Mei nodded as a customer entered the bakery. "My son makes me feel very much the same way."

"You have a son?" asked Takou conversationally as he reached into one pocket and clasped his hand around the object that lay within.

"Yes. He's a good boy, but his head is always in the clouds. Makes me wonder how he's going to be when he gets older and he has to take the high school entrance exams. I…"

Mei suddenly stopped talking. Indeed, all noise within the bakery ceased. Takou closed his eyes briefly, and then reopened them. Looking down into his now exposed hand, he uncurled his fingers, revealing a circular object with what appeared to be an open, silver-plated metal cover and the face of an old-fashioned watch, complete with roman numerals, numbered one through thirteen, exposed. The watch glowed slightly with green light.

_Took a little long with that,_ Takou thought to himself as he flipped the watch closed and pocketed it. He had no excuse with which to respond to his berating. He knew full well that it was true. Turning, he entered the kitchen and turned into the side entrance where a set of stairs led up to the living area, right where he knew they would be.

_Only this time they won't creak like they used to,_ he thought as he began to ascend the stairs. Once again he was awash with familiarity, but he repressed it for now. He had a job to do, and he didn't want to mess it up.

_I have only one hour to use up,_ he thought. _I can't waste it. Command will probably be pissed, but I'll deal with them later._

He stopped at a door and after only a moment's pause, he pushed open the slide door and stepped inside the room belonging to one Takato Matsuki.

It was a little disorganized, as rooms belonging to young boys tended to be. The odd manga, book, piece of paper, etc…lay scattered on the floor without rhyme or reason. It was cleaner than most rooms, Takou felt, but it changed little. Not that he cared.

_I used to have quite the pigsty myself,_ he thought, moving through the room. He took in everything that was there, making a mental notation of where everything was and what was there.

He smiled slightly as he spotted a sight that was all too familiar to him. The picture of a crimson dinosaur.

_Hey there, ol' buddy,_ he thought, reaching out for it and picking it up. _Man. Takato, you had such shitty drawing skills back in the old da—_

Takou froze as he spotted something that shouldn't have been on the drawing.

_Oh…shit._

A Hazard sign was sported rather prominently on the dinosaur's chest. The drawings were rough, but it was clearly unmistakable. The real thing sported the exact same symbol, and it, Takou knew, had been the reptile's most easily recognizable feature.

_Something's changed,_ Takou thought, bringing the paper up for a closer inspection. _This shouldn't be here. Takato never fixed this thing up before, even when he made later drawings. Well, right up until middle-school that is, but still._

He frowned. This was a bad sign. He didn't know how or why the drawing of this creature—known only as Guilmon—could possibly have a hazard sign on its chest.

_After all, Takato should have no knowledge of what the real Guilmon is supposed to look like. Not even with a detail like this. Shit. So much for a 'normal' life…_

Pulling out his cell phone, he flipped it open and began to dial a special number he used for situations like this.

**…**

The man in the yellow jacket's head swam as he continued down the street.

Things had changed in the furniture arrangement that was his mind. Places… People… His mind was awhirl with familiar images. For a while now following his encounter with the two children, he found himself under constant assault of recollection that was putting some pressure on his mind. He stumbled once earlier, but had managed to keep his balance. Now though…

He leaned against the outside of a building, kneading his eyes for a moment as he steadied himself.

_All I need is some food,_ he thought. _Maybe then I'll finally be able to work out what's going on with me._

He shook his head and took a deep breath. His head steadied. Lowering his hand from his eyes he took in the people and buildings around him. There were a fair amount of faces that he recognized. Not all of them, but enough to feel that he was being overloaded with information. The lack of knowledge about them beyond save their names left him unsettled.

_Humans don't normally know this many people…do they?_

He felt his stomach gurgle a little, and he felt a bead of sweat pop up on his skin. He placed a hand on his forehead.

_I feel a little feverish._

He scowled. He had felt 'something' earlier. What it was he couldn't say, except that it felt like a strange, but distant, burning sensation in the back of his mind. It made the hairs on his body rise as well, as though they were trying to ward off whatever it was that disturbed him so greatly.

His stomach gurgled again, demanding attention.

"All right, all right," he placated, pushing from off the wall and staggering off. "Just hang on. We'll get something for you in a second. Just let me find a place first."

But that was the question, wasn't it? He wasn't anywhere near a restaurant. But surely he should know this city as well as all the faces that passed by him. He could look up and name a building.

He could look up at the towers of the Shinjuku government building and know—_know_—beyond a shadow of a doubt that it held a government agency known as Hypnos.

_Except I didn't know that until I looked at the building,_ he reminded himself, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder at the towers that, even at this distance, were still visible, looming over Shinjuku, watching it like a pair of insect antennae. He shuddered.

_How come I know all this just by looking at things?_ he asked himself. _But not know a thing about myself?_ He glanced at himself in a nearby window. _And why all of a sudden? I look at myself, but I see nothing. I look at a person other than me, but I get something different._

His stomach growled impatiently and he placed a hand on it._ And why can't I think of a place where I can _eat?

The thought was irrational, and had little to do with his current predicament. But thoughts of food focused him, and if anything else it would provide relief for a serious distraction.

_If I know this city this well, than I should be able to locate a place. Think man, think! Where can I find a place like that?_

As he came to a stop at a crosswalk, he clenched his eyes shut and concentrated fiercely, throwing all of his will into the effort. After what felt like an endless, painful eternity, an image came to him. A small place, simple in appearance and small. Yet there was the smell of bread. He knew of the place…

His eyes snapped open just as people began to cross to the other side of the street. He _knew_ the place…the bakery. Knew it more than the way he knew the names of all those people he passed by. He didn't know why or how, but on some level he felt more…intimate with the bakery than he did with the knowledge of the crowd around him. It was as though the people were mere statistics and the bakery was family. Something more personal while the rest were just background clutter. Unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Why was that?

He looked ahead of him and he saw a young girl with deep, brown-colored hair with a small sprig of it tied off on the side of her head by a ribbon. She wore a simple, olive-green colored dress over a yellow shirt, and she had amber-colored eyes. She wore a smile that should have been more, but at this moment it did not touch her eyes. A mask concealing something else.

A name sprang to mind immediately. Jeri Katou.

Only this time, the name fell into the same category as the bakery he remembered. Something—_someone—_who was closer to him than those that passed him. And, now that he thought about it, the same held true for the two children who he saw before the whole headache started.

Their names now came, almost burying him in a flood of new information.

_Takato Matsuki… Rika Nonaka…_

More names came as well. Names to faces he hadn't even _met_ yet. _Henry Wong… Kazu Shioda. Kenta Kitigawa…_

With each of the new faces came something else. Something…wholly alien. A creature—each one different—with names of their own, and appearing with each human name and face that cropped up.

_Guilmon. Renamon. Guardromon. MarineAngemon…_

He felt as though he _should_ know something about them. Something, if not _everything,_ yet nothing came to him. Only names and faces.

And the bakery.

_The girl!_ he thought desperately, looking up at the girl as she approached. A worried expression was on her face, looking down at him—he hadn't even realized he had fallen. The other humans were all looking down at him, and someone said something about calling for an ambulance.

"Are you all right?" came the voice of a woman from behind him.

"Get away from me!" came the shout from his lips, catching him, the woman, Jeri, and everyone else by surprise. He blanched immediately. He hadn't meant to do that, but his mind was so overloaded, so overtaxed, that at this moment he couldn't help doing anything else. He needed some peace and quiet so he could organize his thoughts. But right now he was getting none of that. Everywhere he looked he was getting new information, faster than he could handle…

A shriek ripped through his mind. Not a physical shriek, or even a 'shriek' in the traditional sense of the word, but to him it felt like a shriek. Something shouted an alarm, and instinctively his body obeyed. With seemingly no effort he launched himself into the air, knocking back the woman into the crowd just as the ground beneath him heaved and began to transform. A face containing molten, red-glowing rock ripped free from the pavement, chunks of concrete flying or sagging as the creature, whatever it was, rose up. Screams filled the air as the man in the yellow jacket began to desce…

He blinked and looked down at himself. He was no longer the man in the yellow jacket. He was…something else now. Something rather short with blue skin and a tattered cape containing what looked to be odd symbols and nothing else. He had absurdly large zippers all along his body, especially around his knees, and a collar rose up from his cape to cover the lower half of his face. He felt the weight of a hat shift atop his head and he hefted a staff with a crudely cut sun-like image affixed to its tip.

He had no time to wonder about his sudden transformation. The lava being ripped a molten arm free from the ground and promptly swatted him with it.

A/N: The plot advances with some things revealed and more questions coming into the picture. The mystery deepens.

...

My approach earlier on in the chapter with Takou's scene was largely to address his character and give him a little bit more defining characteristics for readers to pick over. He is plainly familiar with the bakery and its occupants. More so than he should be at first glance, but the story that he fed Mei could easily be a lie as it is the truth. Either way, I wanted to give him some elbow room with which to grow as a character. Whether or not he's good or bad I'll leave it up to you until the revealing moment arrives. :D

Until next time.

-Crazyeight


	5. Wizards and Monsters

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 5/Wizards and Monsters

"_Why did you engage your Isolation Field?"_

Takou couldn't help but chuckle a little at the voice on the other end of his call. The voice, female, wasted no time in cutting to the chase.

_It's one of her qualities that I find so endearing,_ he thought with a small smile.

"Nice to hear from you too, ma'am," he said casually. "Just thought I'd let you know that there appears to be a Recovery Situation."

_"Again?"_

"Now, now. This is nothing like the usual rigmarole that we're used to dealing with. This is more than just a simple 'hiccup' in the system."

_"Would you get to the point?"_

"I am currently standing inside the room of our old friend, Takato Matsuki." He let that sink in for a moment before continuing, his voice becoming serious. "There's been a change in his drawing for Guilmon."

There was silence on the other end for a moment as the person on the other end processed this news. Takou tapped his fingers against his pant leg, waiting patiently. He knew her well enough to know that this silence meant that she was not in the least bit happy about this development.

_"Takato Matsuki?"_

"Yes ma'am."

_"And Guilmon."_

"Yes ma'am," Takou repeated, nodding to himself. "Those very two."

_"As I recall, they were rated Priority Alpha."_

"That they were, ma'am." Takou looked back over at the drawing of Guilmon, his face grim. "Takato especially was earmarked under that."

_"You said that there was a change in the drawing for Guilmon. What was it?"_

"Oh, just the Hazard mark on his chest." Takou reached out and lifted the drawing. "You've seen the original drawing when we first made the scan, right? It wasn't there."

_"But it is now?"_

"That's right, ma'am. Here, I'll send you the image." Takou lowered his cell phone from his ear and held it in front of the drawing. A holographic circle encompassed the two for a moment and then disappeared. Takou returned the phone to his ear. "Did you get that?"

_"Yes."_ A pause. _"All right. I'll call all active Controllers in the area and have them be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. Since you're there already, you are to continue your surveillance of Takato Matsuki. I will detail assistants to you."_

"Of course, ma'am," Takou nodded. "I'm sure I can use Hypnos' resources to assist in this, but I will need something to…justify the surveillance. After all, its purpose is to monitor digimon related activity and we haven't allowed so much as a bio-emergence…"

_"We are _not_ allowing any contact to develop between the real and digital worlds. You know our policy. You'll have to think of something else and work with what we have. No exceptions."_ A pause before she continued. _"And _no_ use of loopholes."_

_ Damn it…_ Takou pulled one hand into a tight fist, but otherwise kept his smile. "Understood, ma'am. May I request the agents who will assist me out here?"

_"Send their names in, but be quick about it or I'll assign whoever's available. In the meantime, I'm going to get in touch with the Project Directors and apprise them of the situation."_

"Understood. I'll be in touch." With that, Takou hung up. He looked at the screen on his phone for a moment, allowing the stillness of the moment, or more precisely the hour, to reign while he gathered his thoughts together. As he did so, he remembered something he read during his time at the University; a philosophy class that dealt with human nature. He could no longer remember the exact specifics of it, but there was this:

_The human mind abhors a vacuum. _He felt that the quote fit things quite well.

_ Takato,_ he thought, pocketing his phone. _Why are you waking up? After all this time. We held our damn breaths for months, and just when we thought we were in the clear, you went and did this. Is it because of Guilmon?_

Takou pressed his lips together into one thin line.

_Possible. It's very possible. Takato considered Guilmon so much a part of him that he couldn't abandon him. I still remember the last thing he said to me about their bond, back before the Project was given the go ahead._

_ You said that you thoughtlessly put the world in danger when you helped create the way back to him, and that in spite of everything, you would do so again._

Takou's eyes took on a sad expression.

_Some hero you were._ He passed a hand over his eyes._ And dammit…I still think you are one._

He stood like that for a moment before dropping his hand and straightening himself out.

"All right. Enough of that. I've got to get moving. I've got to find Takato and get that list to the mum before she assigns some brainless rookie to me. That'll be the last thing I need." He grimaced. _And with the way my luck is sometimes, it'll be the last thing I'll get too. At least until next time. Resurrection: does a body good._

With his mind full of determination, he exited Takato's room and, without further thought, left the bakery. Reaching into his pocket, he touched the silver watch and took it out. The device glowed slightly and within moments the hustle and bustle of the world resumed. Back in the bakery, Mei Matsuki abruptly started and stopped talking, as she found that the person she had been talking too had disappeared.

Takou, for his part, found it mildly funny.

_It'll give her something to talk about around the dinner table tonight,_ he mused, disappearing into the crowd.

It was at that moment that he heard the gentle thud of a distant explosion, and a plume of smoke rising in the skyline above the city.

"Oh fuck…" he swore before breaking into a run.

**…**

"Status!" growled Yamaki, stepping into Hypnos' control room, his lighter flicking open with a loud click. Sitting at their posts and swiveling around, Riley and Tally's fingers were a flurry of clicks as they processed commands and information.

"We've got a Wild One," Riley told Yamaki. "It's right inside the city. I don't know how it slipped by the defenses."

"There's also an unusual mass of fluctuating data in the area where the Wild One is located," added Tally. She frowned beneath her visor. "I've…never seen anything like this. The data appears to be alive, but it doesn't seem to be a digimon or anything that we've seen before."

"Get the helicopters out there to contain the situation. I want satellite surveillance immediately."

"Working on that now, sir," said Riley. "However, we're experiencing some interference by the anomaly. I'm attempting to work around it."

"Where's Yamasaki?" Yamaki scowled under his sunglasses as he took a look around the darkened room.

"Uh…" Tally took a quick glance around her. "He…uh…he's not here yet, sir."

"Thank you, Tally. I can see that." Yamaki pushed his shades up onto the bridge of his nose. "I'm asking why he's not _here._"

"I…I'm not sure, sir."

Yamaki grimaced and pulled out his cell phone, already dialing the number of the man he needed.

**…**

Takou raced down the street, unmindful of the odd looks he got from the pedestrians. He pulled out his pocket computer and turned it on. He hit a number of key commands and the screen displayed a map of Shinjuku. He manipulated the map to shift the map around toward the area that he wanted, and came up to a stop when he hit a spot that was utterly blank.

_That's…not good. We've got an Id emerging._

The hideously forceful buzzing of his cell phone brought him out of his thoughts like a splash of ice cold water, causing him to jump a little in surprise. Snatching the annoying object out of his pocket, he flipped it open without looking at the caller ID.

"What?" He snapped.

_"Did I catch you at a bad time?"_ came a rather sarcastic, gruff tone, and Takou grated his teeth together.

_Yamaki._

"You mean besides the fact that Hell seems to be breaking out in front of me?" he asked, returning Yamaki's tone. "And that I'm not at Hypnos to help conduct damage control?"

_"Glad to see that you understand the situation. Get back here."_

Takou snapped his cell phone closed, not bothering to answer. _The man has the worst sense of timing in the universe, I swear._ He looked at the smoke that continued to rise into the air. It was getting thicker. Something was burning. Takou felt his skin prickle in response. He looked around him, swearing mentally before dashing off.

_I'm in desperate need of an alley right now…_

**…**

Smoke choked the air as cars burned. Metal shrieked and asphalt roared as something large and heavy smashed into them. A lithe, battered looking figure wearing a tattered cloak and pointed hat landed atop an upturned car, only to rapidly disappear again as a massive figure, shrouded by the smoke, charged forward and smashed a thick, tree-trunk-like arm down across it. The two ends of the car bent upward, spraying gas every which way. The creature lumbered forward, a groaning noise escaping from it as it did so.

All this, Jeri Katou saw as she lay sprawled across the ground, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn't be noticed in the ensuing chaos.

She turned her face away from the two combatants, looking desperately for some sign of someone, anyone, who could help her. There was no one that she could see who wasn't already in a similar state, the crowd of people having largely taken off in a panic as soon as…whatever it was that happened, happened.

_I've got to get out of here,_ Jeri thought. She tried to get back up to her feet, but she instantly regretted her movement as her ankle protested. She collapsed back down and reached toward it, massaging it as a low whimper escaped her lips. Her fingers met stiff, burning resistance from skin and muscle that bulged and red. She bit her lower lip painfully.

_I…I think I broke my ankle,_ she thought, wincing at so much as the slightest touch of her fingers. She clenched her eyes shut, whimpering again as fear started to overwhelm her. Tears slipped down her cheeks.

_Please…someone…someone help me. _She gasped out a cry. "Please…" she whispered. "Someone…"

**…**

"Hm?"

Takato paused in step, a confused look forming across his face. He looked around him, furrowing his brow.

_That's weird. For a second, I could have sworn that I heard…something. Like a call for help._

Yet, as he looked around him, there didn't seem to be anyone in trouble, and there certainly wasn't anything causing any immediate problems either. There was just the usual throng of people going about their business and talking on their cell phones. Nothing out of the ordinary. The sense that there was trouble afoot though niggled at his mind. After one long moment he forced himself to get moving again.

_I'm probably just being paranoid because of that girl,_ he thought, scratching his head in an attempt to assure himself. _Yeah. It's probably because of that. I have one weird dream about a person-I-never-met-before-but-ends-up-being-real and suddenly I think I have to save the world or something. _He laughed nervously. _Some joke, right? I just know the universe is making fun of me. It always does._

Yet, despite his thoughts, he couldn't shake the terrible feeling that there was something going on right now. Something that only he could take care of.

And a part of him wished that he could.

**…**

Wizardmon hit the ground and fell into a roll, gritting his teeth to avoid crying out from the pain that assaulted him. He leapt to his feet almost as soon as his rolling ceased, landing atop his staff and blasting into the air, narrowly avoiding being crushed beneath a massive, stone fist as it slammed into pavement. Spindly cracks spread outward. Wizardmon raised one hand in response and energy crackled around it, forming a sphere of energy.

**"Thunder Ball!"** he shouted, and the sphere leapt from his palm and slammed into the smoke-shrouded creature. The creature roared forth through the smoke, showing no signs of having been effected by the attack. Wizardmon grimaced.

_He just won't go down,_ he thought, deciding to put some distance between himself and the beast. _He took everything I have and he still keeps coming._

The creature, he was forced to admit, was every bit the monster that he assumed it was just from first glance. Dark, ashen stone armor covered a flowing, molten body and it had large, long, ape-like arms with powerful, gigantic fists. When the monster first appeared, ripping itself from the ground in a blazing maelstrom of fire and roaring earth, Wizardmon first thought that it was an evolved form of Meramon—a digimon completely composed of fire—but that thought went out the window as soon as its rocky hide cooled, forming armor, at which point he thought that it was a Golemon or some similar subspecies.

Like the previous thought, this too ceased to be relevant when it started…doing things.

Wizardmon circled the beast, trying to figure out his next stage of attack.

_There's no spell carved onto its back that I can target. I don't even sense anything about it except for a great well of untapped power._ Wizardmon narrowed his eyes._ Just what are you?_

The beast turned a snarling, dark face up towards him, tracking his movement. It was intent on him…focused even. Wizardmon felt as though he had seen this look thousands of times. An animal looking upon its prey.

Finally, with a titanic roar, the beast smashed its fists into the ground and molten lava spewed forth from its back.

_It's getting ready to do something again,_ Wizardmon thought, panicking a little. He fought to remain calm. Fear wouldn't do him any good right now. He had to be ready when the creature's attack came.

Most digimon—not all, but most—tended to have a pretty straightforward set of attacks. Some were predictable, as they were based on the form of the creature and the type that they had. Others, that is to say those that achieved either the higher levels of evolution that all digimon were capable of, or learned through program languages such as Wizardmon himself, had less predictable attacks. Even so, few digimon had abilities that were large and varied. Some digimon, like the Vampyric Myotismon, had been known to manipulate fogs when they expanded their powers. Others, such as the clown-like Piedmon, utilized illusion and transformation to augment their abilities. But in the end, these digimon, powerful outside the boundaries that they normally were capable of, ended up relying on the base abilities that they evolved with to do battle.

The creature down on the ground, Wizardmon had come to know the hard way, did nothing of the sort. Its abilities were quite different.

Lava spurted as the rock on its back tore open, and the streaming, blazing head of a dragon ripped free, shrieking a fierce battle cry. Wings quickly followed, as did a pair of burning claws, offering it a better ability to climb out of its 'birth'. A fiery tail whipped around as it freed itself, and with one final shriek it slipped into the air. Beneath it, the cracked hole in the golem-like creatures back closed up and hardened again.

Wizardmon didn't have time to take note of this. He had enough on his hands just from dealing with the dragon that was flying towards him.

**"Magical Game!"** Wizardmon shouted, firing a stream of electricity at the dragon. The blazing beast spun in midair, its body flaring from the wind that blew around it, deftly evading the lightning bolt streaking past it. Wizardmon cursed and attempted to retreat, but the dragon was much too quick for him, and it plowed into him, knocking him off his staff with furious force, its body, surprisingly, having quite a bit of physical mass to it despite being composed of flames. Wizardmon, again, didn't have time to think on this, and instead turned all of his energies to escaping the beast.

This was rendered quite difficult by the fact that he was presently screaming from the intense pain as fire burst across outfit.

The two plummeted to the ground, and Wizardmon felt his senses deaden momentarily as he took the full brunt of the impact. The pain from the fire was quick to bring him back to consciousness however, and he struggled to escape from the dragon. The creature snarled, apparently not having any of that, and quickly slashed at him with its blazing claws. Wizardmon clenched his eyes shut, blotting out the pain as best he could, and raised his free hand. A light sparked upon one finger tip.

A second later, the dagger-like blade of one of the sun-rays on his staff was sticking through the chest of the dragon, gleaming dangerously close to Wizardmon's own chest. The dragon looked down at the offending object, as though startled, and then its flames dispersed, raining to the ground. Wizardmon sucked in a deep, desperate breath and grabbed his staff. Pushing his injured body off the ground, using his staff as a crutch, he quickly brought his focus back onto the stone-creature.

_It's changed,_ he noted through the fog of pain in his mind.

It was true. The stone-creature was standing taller now, more rigid, losing its ape-like appearance. Its arms were smaller, balancing out its body better. If it weren't for the fact that its face was now a smooth, plain and empty surface, it would have appeared almost appeared…human.

A flicker of memory came to Wizardmon, and he found himself almost collapsing to his knees as he gripped his head tightly with his free hand. The stone-creature regarded him for a moment, as though contemplating its next course of action.

It flexed its fingers as it stared at him, and then pulled them into a tight fist. Molten spikes shot out from its knuckles, quickly darkening as they hardened and cooled.

Wizardmon fought through the pain tearing through his skull and assessed the situation.

_No one's coming to help,_ he thought, a note of resignation echoing in his mind. _No Tamers…whatever they are…are coming to stop this thing._ He winced as a fresh bout of pain spiked through his head at the term. _I…I need to get out of here. I can't beat this thing. It's…it's going to kill me if I stay._

His eyes jerked away from the stone-creature as it started towards him. He felt far too weak to escape, but he would have to try. He…

His eyes fell on the form of Jeri Katou as she tried to crawl away. Something in his heart cried out in surrender.

"I guess…this is it then," he murmured aloud. "I can't just leave her here." He steadied himself on his staff. The creature continued to approach him, each and every step appeared cold and confident that victory was at hand.

Wizardmon, in his exhaustion-ridden mind, could only think that he must look terrible.

_Not the way I intended to go out,_ he thought. Distantly, he heard some kind of sound. A _thup, thup, thup, thup_ that grew closer with each successive _thup._ He didn't dwell on it, and instead focused on channeling as much power as he could, hoping that by doing so he could destroy the creature in one fell swoop. It didn't matter if he collapsed. Just so long as he defeated the creature…

A spray of bullets slammed into the stone-creature's body, causing its chest to shatter and send molten lava spewing in all directions like some kind of volcanic blood. The creature spun around, only for another storm of metal slugs to chew into it, this time its head and arms. Wizardmon looked up in bewilderment just in time to see a pair of black-colored helicopters sweep over the streets.

_What the…?_ he began, and instantly his mind provided him with some information. _Hypnos! Those belong to Hypnos! So help _was_ coming after all!_ Wizardmon felt like slumping down, grateful that help was here and now the pressure could be taken off him. The fact that the battle was far from over prevented him from doing so, however. Refining his attack, he threw a ball of energy at the stone-creature's legs. The first blast slammed into its ankles, sending bolts of lightning snarling up its body. The creature didn't make so much as a sound, but the attack forced it to fall to its knees. Wizardmon nodded, feeling rather good at finally having succeeded at doing _some_ damage to it. Smiling to himself, he limped away towards where Jeri lay, keeping a careful eye on the creature to make sure that it didn't try to attack him while he moved.

He needn't have worried. The monstrosity had more than enough to worry about as Hypnos' helicopters swung around and again peppered it, this time with an even stronger barrage consisting of small rockets in addition to its bullets. An explosion and a splash of lava later and an arm, alongside a sizeable chunk of abdomen reduced to rubble, went flying through the air, where it crashed into the ground. The creature staggered, turning its head towards its fallen limb. Lava flowed and reformed around its broken body. It looked up at the helicopters as they prepared to make another pass and a sound that was eerily like a mixture of a snarl and a grinding of stone could be heard coming from it. It turned towards Jeri, who, despite her best efforts, was unable to leave the battlefield.

An alarm bell went off inside Wizardmon's head as some hidden, unknown knowledge, as sure as instinct, came forth.

_That's not good,_ he thought. He was quickly proven right. A red glow appeared beneath its dark, stone armor and it thrust its free, still attached arm into the ground. The red glow spread into the streets and the ground began to flow into the creature's body. The stone beast's body melted and began to grow in response to the addition of mass. Wizardmon glanced over at Jeri and back at the creature. The crimson glow was steadily spreading towards her.

Summoning all the power that he could, Wizardmon leapt onto his staff and sped towards the crawling girl. His body shook from the effort. He was far too badly injured to be able to keep this up for very long, but he pushed through the faintness that he felt creeping up on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the stone creature, having caught his movement, now spun in his direction, slashing a new, massive arm in his direction. He closed his eyes and urged more speed out of his staff, breathing a sigh of relief as he felt a powerful gust of wind blast over him instead of the impact of a blow.

_Can't…rest…yet,_ he told himself, approaching Jeri. Muttering a spell, he raised one hand, and Jeri raised up from off the ground just in time to avoid getting touched by the red glow as it spread over where she lay. Wizardmon snatched her up between his arms, ignoring her cry of surprise and fear and blasted up and away. A loud roar tore through the air behind him, but Wizardmon pushed himself all the harder. He didn't look behind him to see what the creature's response was. He didn't need to. If something struck him from behind, that would be all the answer that he would need, and at this point he was far too exhausted to try so much as a simple dodge if such a thing happened.

He didn't know how long or how far he flew with Jeri. Time seemed to lose all meaning to him, and he became just a creature of motion, pain, and sweat. All he could do was just keep on moving and pray—a strange thing he felt, for him—that they would find safe haven soon.

He found himself flying over what appeared to be a forest, and it was just then that something within him folded and collapsed entirely. Speed bled away and they began to lose altitude. Wizardmon wavered atop his staff, the world disappearing in a snarl of vertigo and darkness. Something within him though refused to surrender just yet, and he forced himself to stay balanced on his staff until they dropped below the tree line. Then, simple limitations at last took hold of him, and the last thing Wizardmon knew was the loving touch of hard ground as it rose up to meet both him and Jeri.

**…**

Jeri moaned pitifully as she pushed herself up from off her rescuer. The strange, blue-skinned wizard had thrown himself backward at the last second so that he would take the full brunt of the fall. She looked herself over. She was a mass of scrapes and her clothes were chocked and dirty from smoke. Her mind was awhirl with confusion, and she tried to orient herself, hoping to properly figure out what she had just gone through. She looked around her, taking in her environment to see where she was. She and the wizard lay upon a beaten, well-worn, dirt path. Trees and brush were situated on every side, as was a bench.

_Shinjuku Park…_ Jeri felt relief rush through her, and almost immediately she broke down and began to cry. She was safe. She…

"Ow…" Jeri cringed as she shifted her leg and her injured ankle flared painfully. She pressed a hand against it and looked at it helplessly. She bit her lower lip.

"I…I can't walk like this. I…I need to get help." She looked around her. "H-Hello?" she called out in a tiny voice. "Is…Is anyone out there. I…I…"

A low groan reached her ears, and she turned in its direction. Her eyes fell upon the still form of the blue-skinned wizard as he lay on the ground. She tilted her head to one side as something tickled her memory.

_I've seen you before,_ she thought. Before she could pursue that thought any further, a loud snap interrupted her. Her amber eyes snapped over in its direction before widening in surprise.

Surprise that quickly dissolved into incredulous relief as she recognized the figures that were now approaching her.

**…**

Time froze once again as Takou reached the battle site. He clicked his silver watch device closed and stepped toward the stone creature that now focused on him, confusion apparent in its gate. It was the only thing left unfrozen, as evidenced by its continued motion, and the stillness of the helicopters as they hovered in midair, their propeller blades and bullets caught in the middle of their motion.

Takou reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Removing a card embossed with a _Digimon_ logo from it, he narrowed his eyes.

"All right you Id," he began with a touch of impatience in his voice. "We've got twenty minutes to kill here, so let's be quick about this. No games, please, or else I'll be really upset."

The creature made a gravelly growl as it readied itself. The card in Takou's hand began to glow.

"Digi-modify," he said under his breath.

**…**

A/N: And so ends another chapter for Reset, this time finishing out the battle scene and leaving, once again, more questions for all of you unanswered. But this time, some clues are available, particularly with the creature Takou I.D.'d (haha) as an 'Id', which forms the basis of why things are the way they are in this new world of Tamers.

'Till next time. :P

-Crazyeight


	6. Reactivation: Part 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 6/ Reactivation: Part 1

Takou Yamasaki heaved a sigh as he dropped the point of a massive sword to the ground. Sweat poured down his face, carving a path through the dirt and grime that lined his face. He felt worn out. Painfully so, but in a way the pain was good. Comforting even. It delivered a message to him, and that message was that he was alive.

The fact that he stood also told him he had won.

Opening his eyes, he looked around the street-turned battlefield, surveying the broken chunks of lava and stone—all that remained of the golem creature that he fought. Each rock glowed a subtle crimson. Takou shivered and pressed one hand on his sword arm.

_This was pretty close,_ he thought. He grimaced, clenching his teeth together. _Damn it._

A glow surrounded his sword and it shrunk down to the playing card that he had brought out earlier. He pocketed it and pulled out both his cell phone and his pocket watch. He checked the time on the latter before turning to the former and hitting the call button.

_Five minutes. Let's make the best use of this._

A second of ringtone later and the other line picked up.

_"Status?"_ came the female voice that he expected.

"The Id has been dealt with," he explained tersely. "I'm a little bit banged up. We're going to need to rewind things and then purge the system." A pause. "Can you do that?"

_"Negative. There are too many X variables loose right now. One has escaped. We're having a hard time pinning it down unfortunately."_

Takou ran a hand through his hair, repressing an exasperated groan.

_The Wizardmon,_ he thought, remembering catching sight of the flying digimon just scant moments before entering the battlefield. Where was it now? Was it beyond the range of his Watch? Or was it…

_Probably. She just said they were having a hard time pinning it down. Shit. This is bad._

"Is this a bad time to say…_I told you so?"_ he asked sardonically.

_"Yes,"_ replied the voice on the other end. _"But as I recall, that wasn't you."_

"I know." Takou sighed and rocked on his heels. "Look. Can you do a little bit of repair work here? My DART can only last so long, even at its minimum operative range. I mean, I _know_ that's within your abilities."

_"…I'll see what I can do. But Hypnos is outside of your range. I can't do anything about them. Not without causing problems in the system."_

"I've heard the song and dance before," Takou said impatiently. "The clock's ticking by the way. We're down to three minutes. Well, more like two minutes and thirty seconds…"

_"What? Why didn't you say so?" _

"I'm a little tired." Takou tucked his watch into his pocket. "Anyway, about those assistants that I need… I've got a name for the first one. This one is…important. You won't like it, but I'm going to need him reactivated."

_"Reactivated? Him?"_ Takou allowed a pause in the conversation to let the realization settle in. _"You can't be serious."_

"I want this business with Takato settled quickly, and he's the best bet, all things considered. He can kill two birds with one stone, and he's sympathetic."

_"He _was!_ Will he be when he sees how things are _now?_ He…"_

"One minute and twenty seconds before the DART's Isolation Field ends. Give or take. Besides, we have to remember that this is the Hazard and Takato we're talking about."

_"All right. All right. Just…just do it, damn it! But I'm warning you…"_

"You warn me then," Takou said. "And I'll consider myself warned." He wiped a hand over his forehead, the side of his palm coming away with a soot stain. "After all, it's only the fate of the world we're talking about here. We all know the stakes."

With that, he closed the phone and took another look around him before jumping up into the air, landing atop a roof with graceful ease before continuing on at a run. He had to get out of the Isolation Field's area of effect before his superior set about rewinding things and setting them back to normal.

_All right,_ he thought, bounding from one rooftop to another until he felt secure enough to drop down into an alleyway, landing feet first into a crouch. Pulling out his stopwatch again, he flipped it open and frowned. He looked up around him and stepped back into the streets of Shinjuku, completing his thought.

_Henry Wong…it's time to see what's become of your creation._

**…**

"Yo, Chumley. Wake up!"

"Huh?" Takato jolted to alertness as he felt the sharp elbow of Kazu Shiota stab him in the ribs. He looked up at his friend, blinking blearily while the other boy gave him a worried expression.

"Hey, you okay bud? You've been acting like you're in Ms. Asagi's class, and that's not like you." He placed his hands on his hips and snorted. "Actually, that's just like you. I mean…aggghhh!" He wrestled one hand in his hair before sweeping it around him in a grand gesture. "C'mon! Look around you! This is the card tournament we've been talking about for _weeks!_ And you're zoning out before the first round even starts? What's the matter with you?"

"Sorry guys," Takato apologized. "I've been…I don't know. The trip here was pretty weird."

"You're pretty weird," grunted Kazu, folding his arms over his chest while Kenta approached, a look on his face that combined anxiety and excitement, but mostly dominated by anxiety. Kazu smirked at him.

"Took ya long enough, Chumley. I was starting to wonder if you tripped on your shoelaces or something. Did you get our forms in?"

"Yeah." Kenta scowled at his friend for a moment before it dissolved into anxiety again. Kazu noticed it.

"What's up? You didn't really trip on your shoelaces did ya?"

"No." Kenta grimaced and adjusted his glasses. "It's just…I've been hearing that the Digimon Queen is here…at this tournament."

"Duh. We brought it up during the school year. We figured she'd attend, and that's why I bought that HiAndromon card. We'll see who's whipping whose sorry butt when our match comes up."

"I don't know…" Kenta looked away furtively. "She's supposed to be in a completely different league than us. I don't know why she isn't in any of the upper leagues. She's good enough for it…"

"That's why it's all just rumor, bud." Kazu rubbed the back of his head and laughed. "Not that we're _weaker_ I mean." Taking out his deck, he shuffled around until he brought out his prized card. "With this baby, I can wipe the floor with anyone in this room."

Takato frowned. "Kazu. I really think you're letting that HiAndromon card go to your head."

Kazu grinned and pocketed his deck. "Hey. You can't win if you don't believe in yourself, right?" His eyes became serious and he struck a dramatic pose. "I'm going to win this guys. Digimon Queen or not, I'm going to kick butt and take names!"

Takato and Kenta both exchanged glances.

"I'm not sure if that's confidence or something else."

Kenta adjusted his glasses. "Definitely something else."

Kazu scowled. "Nice to know that my friends are rooting for me."

"We are," chuckled Takato a little nervously. "But one card isn't everything."

"Yeah," Kenta nodded. "Remember when Takato had that combo? He thought he was pretty hot stuff for a while there until we beat him." He grinned playfully at Takato, who smiled back, albeit with some embarrassment, remembering how their game yesterday played out. 'Humbled' didn't even begin to describe how the match went…

"All right, all right. I'll have to have some kind of backup plan ready…"

"But your cards are already registered," pointed out Kenta. "All of ours are, side decks included. There's not a whole lot that we can do about it right now."

"I can still try to come up with something with what I've got, right? There's probably something I can come up with. I've got Chumley's 'Brave Shield' card…"

"Hey!" Takato's hand immediately went to his card box. "I just got that…"

No sooner did his hands touch the box did the lid pop open, spilling the cards onto the floor and sending them sprawling in all directions. Kazu shook his head as Takato dropped to the ground.

"Awww…man…"

"Sheesh, Chumley," Kazu smirked. "You need to think about things before you react you know. Since when did I get a chance to get at your cards?"

Takato glared up at him.

"Thanks a lot, Kazu," he said, gathering back up his cards. "At least help me pick them up."

"Yeah, yeah…"

**…**

Rika watched at the trio from where she stood against the wall on one end of the tournament room, her arms folded over her chest, just a short ways away. Actually, she didn't so much as 'watch' as she glowered, particularly at the brown-haired boy who resembled a cotton swab. If she hadn't been happy before about their earlier meeting before, she sure wasn't now. He had followed—_followed—_her to the tournament! Well, he didn't quite follow her, but he definitely knew that she'd be there. Worse yet, he had brought his friends with him. And now, there they stood, laughing as the cotton-headed kid accidently dumped his box of cards on the floor.

_What an idiot,_ she thought, rolling her eyes mentally. _What's his game? Is he trying to impress me or something by being here? Does he or any of his friends really think that they can play me in this game?_

A prideful smirk tugged at the corners of her lips.

_As if anyone can take me on. No one's beaten me in two years. No one's going to ever beat me._

In a way, although she would never admit it, this did improve her mood, but only by a tiny hair. She wasn't thrilled at the prospect of having to deal with potential stalkers, but she could definitely enjoy giving them a good thrashing and making them regret even having the thought cross their minds. Although she didn't know the German word, Schadenfreude, its meaning she understood just fine and was more than willing to apply it. Which, in a way, was a good thing, at least for the moment. The card game she prized so much these past two years had been starting to get boring.

_I could do with some excitement,_ she thought, pushing off from the wall. She started to saunter off, to lose herself in the crowd, when she stopped. Furrowing her brow she looked down. Her foot had caught on something.

_A digimon card. _

Bending down she picked it up and turned it over, revealing a white shield with a cold rim and a sun-burst design surrounding an odd pattern of triangles.

_What…is this?_ She tilted her head to one side, her crimson bangs swaying. _The Aegis? I've never heard of a card like this._

She blinked, and all of a sudden the card was different. It was just a standard Brave Shield card that was part of the WarGreymon set.

_That was weird,_ she thought, standing back up. _I could have sworn that…nah. It was nothing. I probably just had something in my eye._

The annoying voice of reason tickled the back of her mind. The unusual _Aegis_ that had been before her eyes for just a second, telling her that there had been no mistake. She had seen what she saw. It had been real.

Rika looked at the card for a moment longer, hints of a feeling she could only call superstition playing in the background of her imagination, but she quickly stifled it by pocketing the card and resuming her walk.

She had no time for such childish things. The tournament was starting.

**…**

"Ooogh…"

Wizardmon groaned and shifted on the cold, hard ground that he lay upon…

No. Wait.

He wasn't lying on anything hard. Quite the opposite in fact, he lay on something soft, pliable, and rather warm to the touch. He furrowed his brow, not yet opening his eyes—he felt bright light just beyond his eyelids, threatening to stab at his vision. Something wasn't quite right. He flexed his fingers and shifted his arms. His joints ached, but there was pressure on them. Something was bound to him. Some kind of cloth or…

_Bandages?_

He felt a warm hand touch lightly against his face, and he sat up with a start, surprising the trio of girls that surrounded him. Wizardmon swung his head around in bewilderment, taking the three of them in. One of them sniffed rather disparagingly.

"He's awake," said a coppery-haired girl with pigtails, her hands on her hips and she wore a guarded look. Crouched on the floor was a dark-haired girl with a gray-colored dress. She looked more worried and anxious than guarded. She glanced over at the third girl, and Wizardmon followed her gaze, settling on the brunette wearing an olive green dress.

"Jeri Katou," he found himself saying before he even knew he was speaking. All at once, pain lanced into his skull and he clutched at it, wincing.

"Are you okay?" Jeri began, reaching out to him before the pigtailed girl put a hand in between them.

"Watch it, Jeri. You don't know anything about this guy. He might be dangerous."

Jeri whirled around on her, looking angry.

"Ayaka, he _saved_ me!"

"Doesn't mean he couldn't have rabies or whatever disease he could be carrying. We don't know anything about this guy. And don't you find it weird that he knows your name?"

"I…"

Wizardmon tuned out their conversation for a moment while he tried to get his bearings back. Memories of his battle with the golem creature flooded his mind, rapidly bringing him back up to some measure of speed about his current predicament, but it changed very little about the here and now. He looked around him. He appeared to be in some kind of concrete hut…

"Un…" Wizardmon winced as a fresh bout of pain dug a metaphorical trench across his brain. An image of a crimson dinosaur flashed across his mind. "Guilmon…" He found himself whispering, bringing the girls' attention back to him.

"Are you hurt?" asked Jeri again.

"He looks sick," spoke up the dark-haired girl.

"I'm…I'm fine," Wizardmon spoke. It was more or less true. The pain was backing off now, gradually, but surely. _Something about this place, and this girl…_

"You," he said, pointing at Jeri. "Who…are you?"

"You just said her name," Ayaka cut in before Jeri could even say anything. "So how about you tell _us_ who you are and what you were doing with my friend here? Or better yet, _what_ are you?" She paused to take in a breath. "We saw you fly in with Jeri. There's nothing alive that can do what you did. What the heck are you and why do you look like a stupid TV show?"

"Ayaka…"

"I don't… Uh…TV show?" Wizardmon clenched his eyes shut. The barrage of questions that the girl threw at him was a little too much for him to handle all at once. "I…I don't understand what you mean…"

Jeri smiled and brushed aside Ayaka's hand. "Maybe we should start over," she said, getting up and bowing politely to Wizardmon. "My name is Jeri Katou, and these are my friends Ayaka and Miki." She indicated each of them with a gesture. "They found us in the park after we…um…landed."

"Crashed." Ayaka did not look at all pleased as she folded her arms over her chest. "And she kept insisting that we not call the police, like we _should_ have. She spun out some kind of bizarre story too about there being a fight in the middle of downtown while she was on an errand."

Wizardmon pressed one hand to his forehead, massaging it.

"Yes…I remember that much. Only…I don't remember much at all I'm afraid. I…" He closed his eyes, thinking desperately. "For some reason…I know her." He paused before pointing at the other two girls. "And…I think I know you…after a fashion. But I'm afraid I don't know why." He opened his eyes, and Jeri saw a great deal of confusion in them. "I don't know why I even look like this. I was just a human right before that…_thing_ attacked."

"Oh good grief." Now it was Ayaka's turn to massage her forehead. "This is just turning into one big nuthouse. And I thought Kazu was crazy…"

A lightning bolt went off in Wizardmon's head. _Kazu!_

All of a sudden he got to his feet, nearly stumbling in the process. "Kazu! I've got to find him! I…"

Before he could so much as take a step out of the hut, Wizardmon found himself collapsing onto his knees, grunting in pain as they struck the hard pavement. For some reason, in his mind's eye, he felt that the ground should have been less smooth and instead covered with cracks and rubble, as though from intense burrowing.

An image of a hole flooded his mind and he clenched his eyes shut.

_Stop it!_ he thought desperately, grabbing the sides of his head. Pain stabbed at his brain again. _Just…stop it! I need to think! _

A pair of hands fell over Wizardmon's shoulders, and he felt himself go rigid at the contact.

"We…maybe we can help," came the voice of Jeri.

"Jeri!" came the shocked voice of Ayaka. "What are you…?"

A glow surrounded Wizardmon just then, and as if it had a mind of its own it leapt out and slammed into Jeri, who fell back as if actually struck. Everyone looked at the fallen girl in surprise and shock for a moment before turning to Wizardmon.

"All right," growled Ayaka. "What the heck did you do to…"

"Stop it."

Jeri's commanding voice brought the girl up to a halt. Looking carefully over her shoulder, she saw the fragile-seeming girl sit back up, a weak smile on her face.

"I'm…I'm fine. I just…" Jeri hesitated, trying to find the right words before offering her friends a shrug. "It's…my ankle. I just…it's sprained you know."

Ayaka and Miki both exchanged glances before looking back at their friend. Before either of them could say anything more however, a crimson glow emerged from Jeri's eyes. Reaching out, she pressed her hands against their cheeks, and both girls jerked, as if shocked. Their eyes rolled up into their heads and they collapsed to the floor.

Jeri Katou, crimson eyes still burning, turned her attention to Wizardmon, and when she spoke, there was a disturbing, mechanical undertone to it.

_"Greetings subject Wizardmon. It has been a while."_

Wizardmon's eyes went wide with horror as deep-rooted recognition fired off in his mind, culminating in one name, spoken in a choking, harsh whisper.

"D-Reaper…"

**...**

A/N: I can only offer my apologies on the severe lack of updates lately. I have…not been in the mood for writing the past few weeks. Some of it was personal, others…not so personal (and more bordering on laziness). Between that and work, just plain crazy financial stuff. Overall, don't grow up. It sucks how complicated things can get even when it's really not.

This chapter, in spite of my best intentions, really only serves to muddy the waters of the story, but the reasons for this is to start down the road to clearing things up. D-Reaper's presence is not exactly what you'd think it is (something of a pseudo rebirth, but more on that in later chapters), and Henry is something of a key himself in clarifying things. Quite important indeed. Heheh.

And lest I forget, the DART name is a bit of a modification of the acronym for TARDIS from Dr. Who (Dimensions And Relative Time). For the moment, it's just an on the fly name (and not very original one at that) until I think of something better. I just felt the need to name the pocket watch device.

Until next chapter, which should be sooner in arrival. :P

-Crazyeight


	7. Reactivation: Part 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 7/ Reactivation: Part 2

Wizardmon felt a chill go down his back. The crimson glow in Jeri's eyes was dying down, returning them to their normal, amber color, but that did little to comfort him.

Jeri Katou, or more accurately the entity that looked through her eyes now, took a glance around her surroundings, her face impassive and void of emotion. Cold and calculating; he might as well have been looking at a machine despite the fact that he was looking at a flesh and blood girl.

The D-Reaper: A genocidal program originally created to manage the flow of information of the Internet, combating the first virus and preventing data from expanding beyond its boundaries. It came across the realm known as the digital world when it was in its infancy, deleting the inhabitants, acquiring data, and then it vanished. There, it slumbered, mutating from the absorbed data of all the digimon it slaughtered, and afterwards returned, causing untold destruction and horror until, finally, it was defeated, but only at great cost to the human and digital worlds.

And its purest form of destruction and chaos came from this girl: one Jeri Katou, described as one of the kindest humans in existence by those who knew her best.

It had been destroyed, but now, through forces that Wizardmon felt he should know but did not remember, it was back. And it resided in Jeri once more.

_ "Fascinating," _the D-Reaper said through the girl's lips._ "I see no sign of Guilmon in this place. It appears that the plan worked."_

She turned to Wizardmon, and for a moment, the faintest sign of a frown crossed her features.

_ "But you are here. This does not compute. All digimon should have been returned to the digital world. Why were you left behind?"_

Sweat crawled down Wizardmon's face and he glanced down nervously at the unconscious human girls.

"I don't…"

She didn't seem to have heard him. Stepping over Jeri's friends, the D-Reaper approached Wizardmon and raised a hand towards him.

_ "I should scan your records to see what has transpired. Your presence is a danger to the human world, but it is not all together destabilizing…yet. I will need to design a suppressant program to negate the effect that you'll have."_

Wizardmon's horror held him in a vice-like grip, preventing him from moving. A rush of images came to his mind—half-buried memories of the digital world's war for survival. The constant running, fighting…the deaths of friends and allies. The sense of despair…

Her hand fell gently on Wizardmon's forehead, and the contact took him completely off guard. Yet he remained frozen in place, knowing that there was nothing he could do. He was as good as dead no matter what he did. Human form or not, the D-Reaper was unstoppable, and he could not hope to escape with her blocking the exit. Her…

Her frown deepened, as though she came up upon something she hadn't expected. Her hand dropped down from his forehead and drawing down his cheek. A neatly trimmed fingernail crossed his pale, bluish skin before pulling back. Jeri, or rather the D-Reaper regarded him for a moment before looking down at her hand.

_ "That is right," _she said, more to herself than to Wizardmon._ "I am no longer what I once was." _She glanced down at Ayaka and Miki, both of whom were sleeping soundly._ "But then…how do I explain their condition?" _Absently she brushed her brown hair out from her eyes, comprehension dawning in their amber-colored depths._ "Of course. Subject Jeri."_

Wizardmon could only look at the entity in confusion. Why wasn't he free-floating data about to be absorbed right now? It didn't make sense. This was the D-Reaper, wasn't it? The destroyer of worlds. The most 'ancient enemy' of the digital world. The Devourer and Throne of Chaos? He should be dead!

_ "This is going to take some time to get used to," _The D-Reaper said, this time in a tone that caused Wizardmon to tilt his head to one side questioningly. It had a more…human sound. It was as if the entity was annoyed about something. Something tickled at his mind, and he felt his fears wash away by it. Some knowledge danced just out of reach, but in that feeling, he felt, strangely, that he could trust this…thing that inhabited the girl's body.

_ This is either going to be the dumbest or smartest thing I've ever done, he thought with a sense of crazed laughter in his mind._

"Um…" he began tentatively. "Hi?"

It wasn't really the best way to start things off, but it was all he could think of, given his current mental state. That was fine though. All he needed was to get the ball rolling again.

Jeri-Reaper—as he decided to call her now—swiveled to face him, as if his voice caused her to remember that he was there.

_ "Ah," _she said, her voice once again retaining a human touch to it. It was faint, but it was there. _"Subject Wizardmon. I apologize. Can you tell me what you remember?"_

"Uh…" Wizardmon hefted his staff. What could he possibly say to this creature? "I'm afraid I…don't have any clue as to what's going on?" He shifted uncomfortably. "Aren't you supposed to delete me?"

It was now Jeri-Reaper's turn to tilt her head to one side in a questioning manner.

_"Delete you?"_ A thousand thoughts seemed to run behind her eyes. _"You don't remember," _she concluded._ "Your tracks must go back to only so far. The reversal process appears to have affected you in ways we could not have anticipated. This is…unexpected, and is detrimental to the whole system." She _frowned and looked down to one side._ "I should find a means to contact subject Takou and subject Arika. They were entrusted with the guardian program. They will, undoubtedly, be keeping a low profile." _She paused for a moment._ "I am afraid that I can do nothing about your memory at this moment, Subject Wizardmon. However, if you will trust me in spite of what you do remember, I can help you. But I will need time to…adapt."_

Wizardmon's gloved hand tightened around his sun-burst staff.

"A…Adapt?" he rasped. His mind was awhirl with a thousand conflicting thoughts. "Trust you?"

He clenched his eyes shut. This thing is the monster that ravaged the digital world! What am I thinking? I can't trust this monster! I…I've got to…to destroy it before…before…

A soft glow appeared around his staff, and Jeri-Reaper looked down at it, curiosity and caution filling her eyes. She looked up at his face, searching it for some sign of intent. After a millisecond of deliberation, her eyes rolled up into the back of her head. Her legs buckled and she collapsed down next to Ayaka and Miki. Wizardmon jerked reflexively, stunned by this unexpected occurrence. He hesitated for a moment, gripping his staff before bringing up one hand and folding his fingers until only the middle and index fingers remained standing. A glow surrounded it and he bent down, pressing them against the girl's forehead with great caution. His arm trembled as he muttered a few words under his breath, and he waited.

One moment. Two moments. Three.

He breathed a sigh of relief. _Unconscious,_ he thought to himself, a sense of alleviation washing over him. It didn't last long as his expression hardened.

_Why did she faint?_ he wondered, pushing back his hat with his staff and scratching the blonde hair beneath. It didn't make sense, but then again, nothing that had happened in the past few minutes made sense. The memories, scattered and fragmented, and the feelings just now, that Jeri-Reaper was not a threat, left him feeling horribly uncertain.

_I should do…something about her,_ he thought to himself. _I'm certain that I could find a way to get rid of the D-Reaper from Jeri._

He raised his hands and peered at them. They were shaking. Closing his eyes, he calmed himself, stilling his limbs. Taking three, deep breaths, he placed his palms around Jeri's head. The air appeared to warp around her and he began to recite a number of spells under his breath. A drop of sweat crawled down his head as he furrowed his brow deeply, carving great mountains above his eyes. After what felt like an eternity, he made a frustrated noise and pulled his hands away.

_I can't find the D-Reaper in her,_ he thought with great irritation._ That's just…not possible. Did she…it…transfer to another body?_

He rubbed his chin and looked at the other two girls. He did a quick check over them with the same spell he used on Jeri. Finding nothing satisfactory he stepped back, tipping his hat back on his head again with his staff.

_If that's the case, then there's no reason to stick around here. I'll just cast a spell to revive them in a while, and I'll begin searching for the D-Reaper._

Wizardmon did so, and stepping to the entrance to the shack, he took one last look at the sleeping girls and then took to the air, ignoring the weariness that tugged at his digital bones as he did so.

As he disappeared into the blue-filled sky, he failed to notice Jeri's eyes open, a cool, mechanical look gleaming within them.

**…**

Jeri-Reaper got to her feet and absently dusted her dress off, watching Wizardmon fly off.

_I almost didn't believe that would work,_ she mused. _But now that it has, I must get started trying to locate Takou and Arika._

She closed her eyes.

_It is a shame that I am all that remains of my original self, trapped inside this limited body. I will adapt. _She stood there for a moment, as though waiting. _Subject Jeri?_ she thought finally to the dark silence of her mind. No response. Jeri-Reaper frowned and reopened her eyes. _She must be asleep due to the shock of my reawakening._ Her next thought was uncharacteristically human-like. _I can't say that I blame her. _

She sighed and brushed aside her hair.

_At any rate, this means that without her I will be limited in what I am capable of accomplishing. All right. I…_ She looked down, remembering the two girls that had been put to sleep earlier. She took a moment to think about what to do with them, and then finally knelt down and took hold of Ayaka.

_This will be difficult…_

**…**

Takou sighed as he came to a halt in front of an apartment door. He looked down at himself in disappointment, only now realizing that his suit had a rather scuffed disposition to it.

_ Should have stopped off at the house before coming here,_ he thought._ That's what I get for being in such a hurry. Akari is going to be pissed at me for this…_

Closing his eyes, he drew in a slow breath. A soft glow materialized around his clothes, and just like that they became immaculate once again. He shook his head, ignoring the tingle that crawled along his skin, and stepped toward the door, knocking politely on it. He waited for a moment, hearing the sound of footsteps and collected himself. The door opened, and Takou found himself looking down towards the smiling face of a young girl, her light-brown, almost purple hair done up in two buns that sat on the sides of her head, giving her the appearance of a teddy-bear. Her bright, cheerful, almost cherubic-like face almost that he recognized made his heart melt, and he smiled at her.

"Hello, little girl," he said to Suzie Wong. "Is your mother home?"

"Yes she is," the girl replied, her voice chipper and full of barely contained excitement. Takou waited for a moment while they both stood there.

"…Can I see her?" he asked finally.

Suzie's response was exactly what he thought it'd be.

"Whyyy?"

_Of all the Wong family members to answer the door,_ he mused sardonically, _it had to be her._

He stuffed his hands into his pocket, one of them coming to grasp with the DART device lying within. _How much time does the power cell have built up now? Probably not enough…_

He ruminated on the stories that he heard from a particular digimon by the name of Terriermon about how annoying the girl had been at this age. He finally understood the validity of the digimon's claim.

_Knowing him, this is only just scratching the surface._

"Because I'd like to talk to her," he replied, still smiling at the girl. "Grownup stuff. Nothing that you'd be interested in."

"I'm a gwown up giwl," Suzie persisted, mispronouncing her R's. Takou resisted the urge to chuckle. That was something else he heard about, but never got to experience when he knew her.

"Sorry. But…" Takou felt like sweating. Just how did anyone talk around this girl? "…um…this is grownup stuff that would bore you. Like…uh…slide shows?"

The girl did not seem put out by this.

"You mean like biwthday pawties?" Her eyes lit up. "My gwanpa always showed us slide…slide…uh…" She scrunched her face in concentration, trying to remember the words. "Slide shows!" she said triumphantly. "He showed us slide shows of his biwthday pawties all the time! I love those!"

Takou scratched his head, feeling greatly disconcerted.

_Not the response I expected._

"Look. I just need to talk to your mother. I…"

"Suzie," came the voice of the girl's mother—Mayumi Wong—as she approached the door. She looked up at Takou uncertainly, but curiously. "Can I help you with something? If you're here to sell us something, my husband says to say that we're not…"

"I'm not here to sell you anything," Takou said quickly. "I'm…actually here about your son, Henry."

_And let's hope this works without any repercussions…_ Takou tapped the button on the top of his DARTS device. He could feel electricity tingle his fingertips, and Mayumi blinked, as if startled by something. After a moment, she nodded, hesitantly and stepped away from the door, opening it wider so as to allow him entrance.

"He's…in his room," she said tentatively. She pressed her lips together, looking uncertain. Takou pressed the button again, and she visibly relaxed. "If you want, I can get him for you."

"That would be much appreciated Mrs. Wong," Takou said, smiling again. Mayumi nodded and disappeared, leaving Suzie alone once more with him. Takou drummed his fingers against one leg in an attempt to distract himself.

"What do you need with my bwothew?" she asked, tilting her head to one side.

"I just have some questions for him, that's all," he replied. "Adult stuff."

"But my bwothew isn't an adult."

Takou raised an eyebrow at that. _Is that how it is with her? Sheesh…_

"Respect your elders, little girl," he told her as he heard the sound of footsteps. His hand still around his DART device, he fiddled with the dial at the top. He pulled it out and took a look at it.

_Good. I've got some time saved up._

"What's that?" Suzie asked, pointing at the watch.

"Just a little present that a friend gave me." Takou looked up just in time to see the familiar visage of Henry Wong appear from behind the door. He hit a button on the side and all at once time froze, save for Henry Wong, who didn't as yet notice that anything had happened.

"Can I help you with something?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Takou nodded.

"Yes. Yes you can."

**…**

Henry opened his mouth to ask what the strange man wanted, but he suddenly noticed that something was amiss. The sounds of the apartment—the TV running, the sound of his older sister laughing, the background music of his brother and the clinking of dishes from the kitchen—had abruptly cut off. He looked over his shoulder, his question dying on his mouth.

"Everything is all right," the strange man said to him. "It's just an Isolation Field. I've just frozen everything…well _almost _everything," he corrected himself. "Anyway, right now we operate outside the flow of time, just to keep it simple. Sorry. Wish I could explain this better, but you were the one who designed these things," he held up the DART device watch. "Not me."

"What?" Henry looked at the man as though he had lost his mind. Takou shrugged as he fiddled around with the dial on the device again.

"Yeah. If I were in your shoes, I'd have the same reaction too. Kind of reminds me of when I 'woke up'. Anyway, this'll all make sense to you in a second." He looked up at Henry and pressed the button on the side. "Trust me."

Henry jolted, feeling as if something had shocked him. The world swam in his vision for a moment, and he nearly collapsed against the doorframe.

"Henwy?" Suzie tugged on his shirt, concerned at his sudden swaying. He blinked. The world was moving again.

"I'm fine, Suzie," he said, patting his sister on the shoulder. "I guess I'm just a little tired." He looked at the man standing in front of him. A name came to mind. "Takou Yamasaki."

"That's me," the man nodded. "Long time no see."

He looked down at Suzie and then back up at Takou. He grimaced.

"Not long enough," he noted.

"Yeah…" Takou nodded again. "We have a bit of an emergency."

"All right," said Henry. Unconsciously, he pulled his sister in for a closer hug before releasing her. "Go back inside Suzie. Tell Mom I'll be right back. I'm just…talking with an old friend."

Suzie looked up at her brother with raised eyebrows, but after a moment she giggled and ducked back into the apartment. Henry watched her go before closing the door behind him.

"So…what's the situation?"

**…**

"So that's it?" Henry asked, leaning against the wall just outside his home.

"That's about the size of it. The pavement came alive and I had to fight it off."

"And on top of it Takato seems to be remembering things." He frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Plus there's also Shibumi's Wizardmon…" he glanced at the watch Takou carried. "Although you haven't been helping much yourself."

"These things are useful in preventing problems from getting out of hand," Takou said. "You designed them to be that way in case any of us woke up and had to make things right. Unfortunately, the ones who woke up wasn't someone like you or your father. And as I recall, we didn't have enough time to 'experiment' with them to learn all their ins and outs."

"That's true." Henry's hand dropped from his chin. "How many people have awakened."

Takou's face was as stone.

"Akari for one. There are…others, but…"

Henry raised an eyebrow. "But?"

"They aren't exactly the kind of people that should have awoken in the first place. Let's just say that for now they're helpful in supplying material assistance, but Akari and I don't know what their long-term goals are."

Henry made a groaning noise as he let that fact settle in.

"What about Hypnos?"

"I'm working there, but I can only do so much without spilling the beans. And the more people who know the truth, the more problems there'll be. Especially where Hypnos is concerned."

"So you just want help with damage control."

"You know this system better than anyone we can find right now due to the amount of influence you had on it. If we knew where Shibumi disappeared to…" he let the sentence drop off, letting its meaning speak for itself. Henry nodded in understanding.

"I'll need my partner back."

Takou sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I've been expecting that. You know how dangerous that can be." A pause. "And I'm _not_ referring to the fact that the rabbit is a terror in his own right you know."

"He's a dog, not a rabbit," corrected Henry with a small smile on his face.

"Is this really the time and place for correcting me? Wait, don't answer that question." Takou chuckled. "Look. You know what the risks are…"

"Terriermon knows my weak points better than anyone," Henry pointed out. "And as a digimon, he can help me. If things are the way they are and something happens with Suzie…"

"With her imagination, yeah, I know. And let's not forget Takato. He's a 'Dreamer' after all. But then, who isn't these days? Anyway, I'll let Akari know about this. Just…keep us apprised of things. I'll check in too." He reached into his back pocket and produced a card. It was marked with a box-like image and emblazoned with the name _Pandora._ There was also a phone number on it. "This is how you can reach me."

"And Akari?" Henry asked.

"She's close to our other 'awakees'," he replied. "As much as I trust her, personally, it's safer that you let me filter information down to her. I don't want the others to get any ideas into their heads. It…might not be safe for you. Any of you."

"I…see." Henry pocketed the card. "All right. Let's get started."

**…**

Takou exited the apartment building, nodding to one Janyu Wong—father of Henry and Suzie—as the man approached on his way home from work. The man nodded back in greeting and they passed each other without comment. Just like the strangers that they were now. But as always, Takou felt a certain apprehension when it came to being in the same area as one of the famed 'Monster Makers'. He kept expecting one of them, if not all, to know the truth about reality and throw it all out of whack.

_Everything's going to be okay,_ he thought, disappearing into the crowd. _Soon the world will be made safe and sound once again. As long as we've got a Tamer on the job, things'll be fine._

He hated himself almost immediately after thinking that. They were, after all, what one would call _famous last words._

**…**

A/N: Another day, another chapter, with more mysteries abounding as the plot advances. Henry's back into the swing of things, and soon Terriermon will be back in as well. What will happen when he gets back, we'll see in future updates.

Until then.

-Crazyeight


	8. Reload and Rebuild

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 8/ Reload and Rebuild

_Pandora, _Henry thought, looking down at the card Takou had given him in the confines of his bedroom. _Well, they certainly named themselves right._ He glanced up at his computer monitor, his gray-colored eyes searching their reflection in the dark screen. Reaching forward, he pressed the start-up button and waited for his computer to boot up. While he did so, he dug through his collection of CDs, searching for the one that would serve his purposes.

It was later, much later than when he last uploaded the _Digimon World_ game that he got from his father—years ago from his perspective now, but only just over half a dozen months ago on Christmas from the timeframe he was in—and his last 'present day' memories prior to being reactivated in regards to the game was that he hadn't played it in a really long time.

_And no wonder,_ he thought._ That was the time it had gone out of control, just like the last time. The _first_ time._

He paused, remembering the way that the game played out then. That 'first time' had been different from the actual first time, and yet, it had also been the same. Or at least similar enough to count. He chose Terriermon, a digimon that was 'small but smart, like him', only with a bit of attitude.

Not to mention that he had a penitent for saying the word 'momentai' whenever he got in trouble over something: a word that meant 'take it easy'.

Henry smiled, remembering his old friend while his computer finished rebooting itself. His hand clasped itself around the CD of his game and he popped open the drive. It pushed out with a whir and a whisper. He opened the CD casing, taking a moment to look it over nostalgically.

_What will it be like this time? _He frowned. _Last time, I thought you were trying to tell me something. Just what is going on in the digital world?_

Numb realization fell over him. He had no digivice, and no DART device was in his possession either. His computer was woefully outdated by his standards. Whatever resources Takou and Akari had, he was going to need them.

_I have a feeling that was the reason why they're working with…whoever it is that they're working with. I really should have asked more about them._

He wondered if he should get in touch with Hypnos, but he decided against it for the moment.

_ Concentrate only on the matter at hand,_ he thought, placing the CD into its drive and pushing it in. _Bring Terriermon back, and we'll go from there._

The familiar screen of the game appeared and he brought his mouse over the 'Play Digimon World' icon. One beep and a second later, the game loaded up, presenting him with a screen listing options for how to proceed. He quickly perused the 'Choose Your Digimon' icon and went through the list until he came across Terriermon's icon. It expanded on the screen and Henry winced a little at the bad quality of the graphics. He still chuckled a little. This was all so…painfully familiar to him. As he watched, the image of Terriermon danced a little and then proceeded to take a dump, leaving a series of black cubes behind him—the best that the animation could manage at this stage prior to the game starting. Henry could only break out laughing at the familiarity of it all.

"Yup," he said, calming down a little and wiping one eye. "That's you all right, Terriermon. "All right. You just hang on. I'll get you out of there. Where did I put those cards?"

He looked around him, searching his 'present day' memories until he located what he was looking for. They were sitting a short ways off on his desk, stacked in a neat pile. He went over to them and placed a hand on them. As he did so, the top card changed, taking on a blue sheen to it.

_The blue cards still work,_ he thought, lifting the card up and inspecting it. A yellow and purple insignia resembling a crude outline of a monster emblazoned its surface. _That's something. All right._ He brought the card over to the scanner device that was attached to the computer for the game. He slid the card through the slot. A bright light burst from the scanner and it began to change and morph. The rectangular shape shrunk into itself, becoming smoother, with more rounded edges. As the light died down, a golden ring materialized on its surface along with a silver-inlaid button. The ring was dotted with strange, angular symbols that Henry recognized as digi-code, the programming language of digimon. The light finished dying, revealing still more features. A green, plastic-appearing trim, a screen nestled within the golden ring, and something on the top that he couldn't immediately place.

_A transmitter?_ he wondered, looking the device over. _This is weird. This isn't the D-Arc that I used to have. I wonder why I…?_ He looked up as a mist began to form around him, emanating from his computer screen. _Terriermon!_ He almost launched out of his chair in eagerness as he stared into his monitor. He could see the rabbit-dog digimon's form beginning to materialize, long ears stretched out and tiny paws reaching for him.

_"Henry…" _He thought he heard the form say, but that could just as easily have been his imagination playing a cruel trick on him. Henry felt tears welling up in his eyes and he reached up to take hold of his partner. He felt his silky fur touch his hands. He was back. He was…

…gone.

_"No!"_ Henry shouted as Terriermon's body lost all solidity and vanished completely from view. He dropped his new device as he gripped the sides of the monitor desperately. "Terriermon!"

**…**

"Wild One neutralized," came the voice of Riley Ootori, relaying the readout on her screen to Yamaki, who was standing below her, flicking his lighter open for what had to be the hundredth time that day. The blonde-haired man smirked.

"They never learn," he chuckled. Still, he had to admit that it was a rather close. Not as bad as that incident in downtown Shinjuku, but close enough. His previous good humor quickly evaporated as he recalled the breach—the 'golem monster' that was unlike anything on record.

_Our information on the digital world is limited, but most of the creatures so far appear as they do in that…children's franchise._ Yamaki flicked his lighter open and closed it with a loud _clink._ _It was fortunate that our aircraft were able to defeat it this time. The weapon improvements that Takou 'suggested' when he first became a part of our program worked wonderfully._

His smile returned as he replayed the video feed in his mind. The bullets smacking into the stone-creature with shattering force, causing it to break apart into shards of data. It was a dream come true. No more did they have to fear the power of digimon.

_Still, it pays to have a fallback plan,_ he thought, flicking his lighter open once again. Still grinning, he turned and exited the room.

"Gather all information on the incident," he said to Riley. "And send it to m—."

"Sir!" Riley exclaimed, interrupting him. "The Wild One! The one we just neutralized! It's…it's _back!"_

_ "What?"_ Yamaki spun around angrily. His eyes went straight to the monitors, showing a red dot appear on them with the same data patterns as the creature they just destroyed. It was moving again, in a different direction than before, and at a rapid pace too.

_This isn't possible!_ he swore. _Takou's program…_ Yamaki paused and quickly composed himself. _Well… What am I to expect? His algorithms worked perfectly up to this point, but it's clear that they just weren't up to the job. I was a fool to believe that his plan would work. He's too green for this job._

Yamaki flicked his lighter closed.

_Fortunately, it's not as if I didn't have a backup plan prepared,_ he mused, pulling a black, rectangular device out of his pocket.

**…**

"Ohhh…man…" Kazu groaned as his shoulders slumped. "I don't believe it…"

Kenta reached out and patted his friend on the shoulder sympathetically. However, the words that came out of his mouth were quite the opposite of the gesture.

"Next time you should really think about your strategy before you go shooting your mouth off."

"Hey! I lasted longer than you did, Chumley. All the way through the first round." Kazu crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his friend while across from him, his opponent, a beefy-looking boy wearing a black T-shirt with a digimon logo, looked at the pair with idle curiosity.

Kenta's face scrunched up into an annoyed expression, but he didn't say anything in response. Instead he just pushed up his glasses and took a look around. His expression brightened upon seeing Takato approaching, a small, relieved smile on his face.

"Hey," Kenta greeted, waving at his friend. "How'd you do?"

"I won." He chuckled and thumbed his nose. "Barely."

"At least you learned to be humble about it," Kazu grumbled as he gathered his cards and started to reshuffle his deck. Takato raised an eyebrow at his friend's attitude and looked over at Kenta.

"He just lost," he shrugged. Takato's other eyebrow rose, but he gave a nervous chuckle.

"Well, I guess that means I'm going to go out next," he said nervously, rubbing the back of his head. "These guys are really out of our league, aren't they?"

"You'd better win your next round, Chumley," Kazu said, stabbing a finger in his friend's face. "So don't say stuff like that. You're representing us out there. Our team, our school…"

"Wait, you care about school?" Takato asked, confused. Kazu glowered.

"All I'm saying is, don't make us look bad. I know that's hard when your best talent is tripping over your own feet…"

"Hey!"

"…but kick butt," Kazu continued. He put on a playful grin. "We'll be rootin' for ya, Chumley."

"Yeah," chimed in Kenta. "We're there for you."

Takato looked at his friends in amazement before gathering his fingers into tight fists.

"Well all right," he said determinedly. "If you guys believe in me…I'll do it." He paused and looked at his friends, his momentary confidence passing. "Uh…how do I do that again?"

"Just get out there," Kazu said, getting up from his chair and pushing his friend lightly, steering him toward the tables behind them. "You know your number right?"

"Yeah. I wouldn't know who I'm playing against if I didn't, right?"

Kazu ceased pushing him and threw an arm over his shoulder. "Sometimes I wonder about you, bud. Your head's been in la-la land all day today."

"How would you know? You haven't been around me all day."

"Have I ever told you how much I've hated your sarcasm? Just get out there?"

Takato was about to make retort when he heard the tournament announcer start calling out numbers and locations. His ears perked up as he heard his number called.

"That's me," he said, peeling off Kazu's arm. "Wish me luck."

"Phht!" started the large kid that had defeated Kazu as he shuffled his deck. "You're going to need it."

"Uh…huh?" blinked Takato.

"Why's that?" asked Kenta.

"Hey!" exclaimed Kazu, shaking one angry fist at the boy. "Don't get cocky just because you beat me! Chumley here will kick your…"

"He's facing off against the Digimon Queen," interrupted the boy, his cards snapping together in a flurry of colored plastic sleeves marked with red, flaming dragons. "I saw her beating one of my friends." He frowned. "He had him crying…"

"Uh…" Kazu stammered for a moment but he quickly recovered. "Okay. But Chumley doesn't cry easy. He'll find a way to take her down." He turned toward Takato, a fearsome look in his eyes. "Go get her, Chumley. Ryo took her down once so you should…wait." Kazu scratched the side of his face, suddenly confused. "Ryo? Who am I talking about?"

"Uh…you okay, Kazu?" asked Kenta, tilting his head to one side.

"Eh. I'm rambling. Anyway, go get her, Chumley!"

Takato nodded hesitantly. Turning, he took a deep breath to calm himself.

_Oookay then. Right._ Poised, Takato started toward the table that he had been told to report to. His heart beat a painful drum in his chest. He had heard rumors about the Digimon Queen, one of which being that she lived in the Shinjuku area. Her skills at the card game were phenomenal and had to be seen to be believed. She had taken the trophy of the regional tournament home twice over the course of two years and won every minor tournament as well…so the rumors went. According to Kazu, there was talk about her going onto the international stage to compete against the most skilled players from around the world.

_I'm toast,_ Takato groaned inwardly. He pressed one hand against his belly to calm the butterflies that stirred within.

_ Maybe it won't be so bad. I'll probably lose, but I should remember that I'm just here to have fun. It'd be nice to win, but…I don't know. I barely won against the last guy, and if Kazu lost just now, then I know I don't stand a chance of winning this thing. He's better at it than me. I've just…lucked out so far._

A smile crossed his lips as he neared the table. For a moment, the briefest of moments, he thought that maybe, just maybe, that would be what happened. He'd luck out. Maybe his combo—the one that combined a speed upgrade card and flying ability—would see him through this match.

_Yeah. That's it. No one's expected that so far, and that's how I've gotten as far as I did._

The thought shriveled and died a horrible death as he cleared the crowd and found the Digimon Queen lounging in her seat, deck shuffled and ready for battle. Red hair tied into a spiky ponytail seemed to shoot fire at the ceiling. Violet eyes, a dark contrast to her pale skin, cool and unyielding, swiveled up to regard him for a moment in a disinterested manner before narrowing into dangers, razor-edged slits.

"You," she said, and Takato, in his shock, felt the full weight of the one word crash mercilessly upon his shoulders. His face changed colors from pale to tomato red, and back to pale again. It was her. The girl from his dreams. The very same girl that he blurted that out to in the middle of the street.

Her gaze took on a frigid, icy stare.

"So… Think you can beat me?" she asked sarcastically, her words taunting. A nasty smirk crossed her lips. "In your _dreams."_

_Awww…nuts._

**…**

"No…_Terriermon…"_ Henry's arms trembled as he clutched the computer screen. His gray eyes were wide, desperate looking. He didn't want to believe what had just happened. His partner had failed to materialize. Even worse, he _knew_ why that happened.

_Hypnos._

_ How could I have been so stupid? Of course Hypnos would be monitoring the barriers between the worlds! Takou and Arika…they would have made sure to beef up the defenses to keep them separate! Terriermon… He…he never stood a chance. He…_

A knock on his door brought him out of the hurricane of emotions that plagued him. Turning, he saw his father open the door, a greeting smile on his face.

"Hey there, Henry. Thought I'd say hi since you didn't."

"S-Sorry Dad," Henry choked. "I…ah…had…had things to do."

It was a miserable excuse, and not even he believed a word of it. But he was too distraught to care. He could only hope that his father would get it over with so that he could get back to wallowing in his misery.

His father noticed his son's emotional weather and took a step inside.

"Did something happen today, Henry?"

"I…I was just playing the digimon game you bought me last year." He blinked his eyes. Emotion washed over him.

_Damn it!_ he thought furiously. _I'm…I'm in the body of a kid. My body _as_ a kid! I don't…I don't have the control that I once had…_

"It's…I think it's broken."

Janyu came to a halt behind his son and picked up the CD casing. He glanced at the screen curiously, but said nothing about it. Instead he turned the CD over and nodded, as if to himself.

"If you want I can get you a new one…"

"No!" Henry snapped. "You can't replace h…it!" He just barely caught himself at the last minute. He sighed and rubbed one hand through his hair. "Sorry Dad. It's just…it's important to me. I know that sounds weird, but…"

"This coming from the kid who was concerned about digimon destroying each other in a game?" Janyu chuckled. "Well, I look at it one way, and you look at it another. You're a weird kid, and you've always been a bit sensitive." His expression became serious for a moment. "But this," he waved the CD casing slightly for emphasis, "isn't about what's bothering you, is it? It's that boy."

Henry didn't say anything. Not because of anything that his father was saying—though it was true, but only in the sense of his past self—but more because it offered him the perfect excuse. With the cover he needed, how could he tell his father that digimon were real? That they existed?

And that he quite possibly lost his best friend just now?

"Yeah," he said, going with the half-lie-half-truth.

"You know better now than you did then," Janyu continued. "That boy may hate you because you hurt him, but…" He paused and chuckled and one hand drifted up to his tie, loosening it. "I wish I was as good at this as your teacher."

Henry forced a smile. "You do fine enough, Dad."

Janyu returned the smile. "I try." He got up and knuckled his back. "I'm getting old. Anyway, I've got a project from work to work on. If you want, we can continue this in my study."

"Thanks Dad," replied Henry. "But I think I just need some time alone."

"All right sport. Just don't forget what I said."

With that, Janyu left Henry's room and closed the door behind him. Henry sighed.

_Dad… If only you knew…_

The sound of beeping broke him out of his thoughts. Looking down at the device, he picked it up. It was beeping rather urgently…

…_just like my old digivice did whenever there was a bio-emergence._ Henry pressed the button and a familiar holographic circle materialized above the device's screen. A red dot appeared on the circle, highlighted by data. The image of a familiar long-eared, cream-colored digimon took shape over the red dot, and beneath it was a familiar name that caused Henry's heart to skip a beat.

_Terriermon…_

Jumping to his feet, he raced for the door.

**…**

A/N: This chapter had a bit of a challenge to it, namely in Henry and Janyu's interaction. Henry, despite now having an older personality is trapped in a much younger body that's still developing, and despite having lived years as an adult, has to return to being a child in front of his father for the sake of keeping a low profile. This might change as the story continues, as Henry's duties and emotions could potentially get the better of him.

And the new device… Henry has come a long way in his development since the series ended. This is only the first sign of how things have changed for him and how that will manifest will reveal more as to why the world was reset. Haven't yet figured out what to call it yet, but it's a work in progress.

'Till next time. :P

-Crazyeight


	9. Fate Held in the Hand

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 9/ Fate Held in the Hand

_Hang in there, Terriermon,_ Henry thought as his feet pounded desperately down the hallway, heading to the door of the apartment. His family turned toward him, eyebrows raised in confusion at his urgency.

"What's got you in such a hurry?" asked Jaarin, Henry's older sister as she munched absently on a thin reed of chocolate Pocky, looking up from the manga magazine she had spread in her hands.

"He probably heard about one of some new Digimon games and decided he absolutely _has_ to have them," laughed Rinchei, Henry and Jaarin's older brother and eldest child in the family. "Kids are still going crazy over that stuff."

Jaarin shrugged her shoulders. "No need to kill yourself over them, Henry."

Henry, for his part, ignored the jibes from his siblings as he hastily threw on his shoes.

"I've got to go see a friend," he told them, tying the laces. "I'll be back before dinner."

"Before?" Holding a kitchen knife in one hand over a fish on a cutting board, Mayumi raised an eyebrow and glanced at the clock. It was fast approaching five. "Mister, you'd better be able to run at warp speed in order to get back before then, unless you're friend is standing just outside…"

"I'll be back before midnight!" Henry exclaimed, throwing open the door and racing outside. His family stared at him, flabbergasted. Finally, after an incredibly long moment, Mayumi turned a baleful look at her husband, who was sitting on the couch, a newspaper in his hands.

"Janyu! Don't just sit!"

Janyu sighed and offered his wife a small smile.

"Boys will be boys," he commiserated. "He'll be fine."

The tone in his voice suggested a rather shaken confidence, and as if to prove it, he got up from his seat and went after his wayward son.

**…**

"C'mon… C'mon…" Henry hit the button for the elevator immediately and stood there, every fiber in his body straddling the edge between the desire to fidget or take the stairs while fighting for control. Impatience was not a habit of his, but the desire to see Terriermon, his closest friend, was all but consuming. How long had it been since they had seen each other? Would he even remember him?

_So many questions. The reset could have done anything to him. I mean, it was supposed to effect only the human world, but we…_humans…_could have changed that! Takou didn't tell me everything so…_

Henry clenched his eyes shut, trying to dispel the storm of thoughts that threatened to drown him. He took a deep, calming breath and let it out, forcing himself to relax.

_One thing at a time. Find Terriermon and get him back home. Right now, that's all that matters._

For the briefest of instants—the _absolutely_ briefest of instants—he found himself wondering whether or not it had been a good idea to send the digimon away.

_Was it worth it? Was it…_

"Henry."

The half-Chinese boy blinked in surprise just as the elevator door dinged and opened. Spinning around, his gaze fell on his father, who approached him with a bit of a tired look on his face. In spite of that, a playful smile bloomed on his face.

"You need to slow down. I'm not as young as I used to be."

Henry stood there for the barest of seconds, surprised at seeing his father and uncertain as to what he should say. Oddly, a thought came to mind.

_He looks better than I remember,_ he thought, taking in the lack of white hair and haggard wrinkles that, in another life, been so familiar.

"Dad…" He finally said, the elevator door closing shut before him.

"Sorry to make you miss your ride," Janyu said, rubbing the back of his head. "Anyway, I should point out that most households wouldn't allow you to just up and take off with as little warning that you gave us."

Henry closed one hand and, carefully, reopened it.

"Mom's upset, huh?"

Janyu raised an eyebrow at his son, taken aback by his sudden bluntness.

"Well…you did decide to leave without even asking for permission. Not that you haven't done so in the past, we have been rather lax about when you leave and where you spend your time, but she did start making dinner, and in case you forgot everyone _did_ agree to spend tonight together as a family."

Henry found himself cursing mentally as a memory from his previous, unawakened self, floated up from the abyss. Yes, he had promised that.

"I'm…sorry, Dad. But this only suddenly came up. I'm not happy about it either."

"Are you in trouble, Henry?"

Henry schooled his face carefully and smiled reassuringly.

"No," he lied. "It's just…something really stupid that my friend did with his computer. He's…" his mind raced furiously, "working to complete a project for summer lessons and he can't get it working. He's afraid he's lost all his files and he's," Henry laughed as an image of Takato during one of his more flighty moments came to mind, "panicking."

Henry found himself relaxing upon seeing his father nod in understanding.

"Well, if that's the case, it can't be helped. I'll explain things to your mother, but just make sure that you get home at a decent time."

"I will, Dad. And tell Mom that I'm sorry."

"I'll relay it, but you'll have to tell her yourself when you get home."

"Okay."

With that, Janyu departed, leaving Henry to marvel at how easily the lie came to his lips. The boy sighed and hit the elevator call button, and once more the door dinged open.

_Well, it helped that I had years of experience from Takato,_ he thought, stepping inside._ Taming aside, he was not the easiest person to work with when he was in college…_

**…**

Takato Matsuki, had he known of Henry's thought, and remembered himself for that matter, would have agreed. Even without the memories, he would still have agreed that he had the tendency to get a little overworked about every little thing, particularly what he didn't understand, to the point where all rational thought would shut down, leaving him a quivering mass of panic. In his old life, years of battling hostile digimon, more than a fair amount capable of destroying the planet, changed him, making him bolder, but even that did not completely scour that habit out of him.

As he was now, he had no experience in combat. He had no years to guide him on how he should react to a given situation, or who he could turn to. He was simply a twelve year-old boy with bigger-than-life dreams.

On top of it, he never quite got the knack of dealing with the girl in front of him, whether she was a friend or an enemy. Takato tilted his head to one side questioningly, feeling a touch of familiarity that he was unaccustomed to having when dealing with strangers. He wanted to shake his head. Perhaps the dream he had about her and the realization that she was _real_ was getting to him.

"Well?" she asked him with a touch of impatience in her voice, still eyeing him with a cool, dispassionate gaze of violet. "Are you going to sit down and play against me, or are you going to just sit there with a dumb look on your face?"

"Huh? Oh!" Takato blinked, dumbfounded for a moment before quickly pulling the chair across from her out and setting himself down in it. His arms shook a little and he fumbled with the lid. His hands felt clammy and his armpits took on a bit of an uncomfortable chill to them; _cold sweat. _He pulled out his cards and, after removing one card from it and setting it on the side, clumsily shuffled them together while she waited. He glanced up at her to make sure that she was real, taking in her appearance for a moment, his eyes drifting down to the broken-heart design on her shirt, subtly hidden behind her crossed arms, before jerking his gaze back to his desk.

_What am I going to say to her?_ he wondered._ I mean, I saw her in that dream, and then…I blurted it out loud as soon as I saw her._

He had a hard time believing that this was happening, but the reality was staring him rather coolly, making him not only self-conscious, but also hard to ignore her. He finished shuffling and placed his deck beside him. He looked up at the girl and offered her a smile.

"I'm all set," he said. She merely _hmmphed_ and cut her deck, after which she began to draw her first ten cards. Takato did likewise. His heartbeat picked up its pace as she lifted the card she had set to the side, like him. This was the Rookie card that they were all supposed to choose at the start of the game.

_Her partner is Renamon…_ a part of him whispered. An image of a golden-furred, vulpine digimon with purple arm-guards and icy blue eyes appeared in his mind.

"What did you say?"

Takato jerked, brought out of his reverie and looked at the girl, her Rookie card still hidden. She had an eyebrow raised and an icy glare threatened storm clouds if he didn't answer.

"Uh…what?"

"You said something about a Renamon."

"I said that?" Takato pointed at himself intelligently. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. All at once another image came to mind, this time from the dream. It came on him so vividly that reality seemed to disappear around him.

**…**

_The sky above was stone-gray…or at least would have appeared that way if not for the fact that the darkness of night obscured its color. He was standing in the middle of the streets in some obscure part of Shinjuku, cold, hard rain pelting down on him from above. He stared up at the dark sky, allowing the rain to strike his face, tracing trails down his cheeks as though they were tears, emulating a hidden emotion that he could barely describe, save that he felt as though he were missing something. Something grand and much larger than he was, yet was as much a part of him as his leg or arm. _

_ Suddenly, something obscured his vision of the sky—an umbrella! Looking down, he found its owner standing directly next to him. Feminine, violet-colored eyes shining in the darkness eyed him coolly, yet strangely holding amusement and sympathy within their depths. Her crimson hair tied up into a distinctive pony tail, and she wore a trench-coat that reached almost all the way down to her heels. She said nothing. Did nothing. Takato felt his lips move, saying something, but he couldn't hear his own words. She seemed to understand though, as she closed her eyes and brought the corners of her lips up into a smile._

_ "Gogglehead," was her response. The sound of her voice, crisp, clear, firm, and full of emotion was enough to wake him up, startled._

**…**

"Wake up."

Takato's vision of the world swam slightly as he was jolted out of the recollection. For what had to be the hundredth time, he blinked his eyes blearily, realizing that he was at the game store and not in the dream.

_ What was that?_ he wondered, glancing uncertainly around him.

"Hey!" the girl said, annoyance making itself known in her tone. "Are you going to take your turn or what? Reveal your Rookie already!"

"Uh…right." Takato shook his head for real this time and did just that, placing Agumon on the field. Rika made a snorting noise.

"Great. _Another_ Greymon specialist…"

"Hey!" Takato bristled, feeling slightly annoyed himself now. He quickly worked to calm himself though. This was just a game after all, and everyone had the right to hold their opinions about it.

_Still…did she have to be so rude? She's…so different from the way she was in my dream. Well…it's a dream. It's not like there's any guarantee that the real thing will be the same. I don't know anything about her. I don't even know her name._

That strange sense of familiarity came to him again, and Takato frowned, wondering where it came from.

_Déjà vu. Did I know her in another life or something, like in those stories I read? Is that why I dreamt about her?_

Takato knew that his thoughts would only go around and around in an endless circle unless he did something about them. The problem was how she had reacted to him when he first told her that he saw her in a dream. It was hardly what anyone could call a good first impression.

The girl across from him was glaring at him impatiently. Seeing this, Takato quickly snapped back to attention and placed a card in the digivolve slot. Seeing this, the girl did likewise. He glanced up at her card, and his eyes widened in surprise at seeing the Renamon card that he missed seeing her play.

"Wha…? A Renamon…" Again, the image of the Renamon appeared in his mind—almost _violently—_appearing fully real. His fingers twitched, as though they were feeling the sensation of the fur on them.

_Wha…?_ his mind gasped. The sensation felt intensely real, more so than the downpour from his dream had ever been, and his mind reeled at the unexpectedness of it.

"Are you even paying attention?" she snapped at him irritably. "What? Did all of your other opponents just quit because you took too long to make decisions or notice stuff like this?"

"Huh?" Takato looked up, distracted for the moment from his disorienting thoughts. "No! I'm…" he swallowed nervously and tried to compose himself. "It's just…um…" His voice trailed off, and the girl eyed him, clearly expecting him to say something more—perhaps expecting him to say something in particular.

_It'd be too weird to say out loud,_ he finished in his mind._ That's it. I'm just going nuts. That's all there is to it. I meet a girl I saw in my dreams, and suddenly my brain is going haywire._

The girl made a grumbling noise.

"This is getting boring," she said, playing a card titled 'Digivice Power Option'. "If you're not going to do anything, then _I'll_ go first."

She turned over the card she had in the digivolve pile, a _Kyubimon._ Takato felt his heart sink upon seeing it.

_Oh man… She digivolved…_

The situation was worse than that. Kyubimon had a B icon on its top, whereas the Greymon in his hand had an A icon. Takato quickly ran through the rules in his head and swallowed. He was in trouble. Greymon would be forced to attack with weaker points than Kyubimon.

_Not unless I use an Option card,_ Takato thought, looking at his hand, spying Hyper Wing and the Speed upgrade card. _But I'll need those on the attack. I'll need something else to protect myself._

It didn't look good though. The other cards in his hand weren't very helpful, and he would need to discard some of them in order to digivolve, as per the rules.

Rika placed a card face-down in the Power Port section of the field. She glanced up at him, indicating that it was now his turn to digivolve or lose the card.

_Not good…_ Takato's eyes wove through his hand, but in the end the best bet that he had remained Greymon, if only because now that he had Greymon in the Digivolve Zone, he had to either use him or lose him. Takato quickly paid the cost and played a Digivice Power Option card to digivolve Agumon to his Champion form of…

"Not so fast."

_Aw nuts…_

Takato's eyes widened in surprise as Rika turned over the Power Option card she had hidden—a Control Spire card—shattering what little hope Takato had for winning. In his mind's eye, he imagined Agumon spinning in midair as he began his digivolution, only to slow down and fall to the ground as the Control Spire worked its power over him, preventing him from turning into the ferocious Champion.

The girl smirked.

"You'll need a better mon than that thing to handle me, little boy," she crowed.

"I am _not _a _little boy," _Takato glowered. He decided that, dream or no dream, he did not very much like this girl.

The girl smirked triumphantly at him, as though the rise in his attitude had been another victory she had won from him. "Tell you what," she said. "I'll throw you a free turn to change things around. Maybe you'll have better luck, though I suggest that you change out your 'dino-boy' for something with a little more bite to it." The girl leaned back in her chair. Her tone had a very superior sound to it that made Takato feel just a little bit annoyed.

"In that case," Takato began, the two of them now drawing from their decks until their hand size stood at ten cards again, "I'll show you that Agumon has all the bite I need."

It wasn't a very good comeback, but at this point Takato didn't care. His smile was back on in full force as he took note of the cards he had now.

_All right. A new Greymon and some more Power Option cards!_

On the whole, this Greymon wasn't much of an improvement over the previous one. It was a newer edition, with superior stats, but it would still be forced to attack Kyubimon with its weaker B attack, while it attacked Greymon with its substantially more powerful A attack. Likewise, Greymon's A attack was weaker than Kyubimon's. It didn't look like there was a way out of thi—

_Hold on._

While the girl placed a card in the Power Port zone and another card in the Digivolve Zone, Takato's smile widened as he thought of an idea.

_All I'll need is a little luck.  
><em> "All right," Takato began, pulling a card from his hand. "I'm going to play this Option card, _Floppy Disk!"_

The girl raised a curios eyebrow at that. "Wow," she chided. "When I said that your luck might improve this round, I didn't mean for you to take it literally. All right. Bring it on."

Takato followed the directions on the card and drew a card from his deck, praying to the gods that his luck would hold through.

As he revealed a digimon card, he knew that his luck was rewarded. Agumon's power was now double what it was.

"Now all I have to do is digivolve and…" Takato's voice trailed off and his eyes bulged in their sockets as realization crashed heavily into him. His eyes snapped up to the girl, who was smirking at him.

"Geez," she chuckled. "Did I even _need_ my Option card? You're your own worst enemy!"

_Oh man…_ Takato thought fast. Once he digivolved the card's effect would be rendered null and void. The girl leaned forward, her eyes joining her lips in its triumphant smirking.

"Okay, _little boy._ It's time to send you back home to your mom."

Rika revealed a digivice Power Option card from her hand and flipped over the digimon in the Digivolve Zone. Taomon.

Takato had the distinct feeling that he was trapped beneath a pile of wet carpets at the bottom of a swimming pool. In short—drowning with no hope of escape.

_Aw nuts…_

"So…" she began. "Are you going to digivolve?

_760…_ Takato's mind whispered, seeing Taomon's stats. _Even though they can both fight with their A attack, Greymon's completely outgunned. Even a modify card won't do anything at this point. But…there's still…something I can do…right?_

It didn't look good. Not at all.

_Great. Looks like my best chance is for us to start over again, and that means she'll be ahead in points. I'll have a lot to catch up to…_

Takato's mind paused as he felt something tingle the tips of his fingers. For a moment, he thought he was going crazy again. Turning towards its source, his eyes could only widen again as he _wished_ he was going crazy for real this time. Electric bolts sparked around a single, distinctive card in his hand. A card depicting a long-eared, cream-colored digimon known as Terriermon.

The girl was about to say something else when she too noticed what was going on. Her whole body stiffened in surprise, words dying in her mouth. Before either of them could say or do anything else, the electrical dance increased in intensity and Takato threw his hand away from him in surprise and pain. The cards suddenly exploded violently and a fine mist flew outward, settling over the game store. Takato hit the floor hard, jarring his head on its surface. Stars burst across his vision, but he was up almost immediately.

"Rika!" he found himself calling out. "Are you all right? Rika!"

_Who's Rika?_ he wondered stupidly, but he had no time to think about it at the moment as he beheld a pair of glowing, yellow eyes staring directly at him from inside the mist. He stood there, staring back, frozen in shock.

_Wha…What is that thing?_

The creature's eyes tilted slightly to the side and then took a step forward, a soft giggle coming from it. In Takato's rather floor-addled mind it was the giggle of a hungry monster as it spied prey to devour, and all at once he snatched up his chair and swung it at the creature. The thing dodged easily to the side landing next to him.

"Sheesh," the creature said. "Momentai already would ya, Takatomon?"

"Ha-huh-wha…?" Takato's mouth fell open, now even more stunned than earlier. What had the thing called him? And that voice…why did it sound so familiar?

_Takatomon…_

"Aaagh!" Takato's questions were interrupted as a sharp pain erupted in his skull, sending all sorts of quakes ripping visions across his eyes. A crimson dinosaur with a hazard sign on his white chest flitted before him, and he went down to one knee. Following the image of Shinjuku Park and a small, concrete hut his second knee joined its brother.

_Wha…What's going on?_

"Uh oh," came the voice from the creature again. "I forgot. I'm not supposed to talk to you. I'm out of here!"

"Ah…" Takato looked up just in time to see the still unseen creature go and make himself scarce, disappearing into the fog. Takato reached out toward it, not fully understanding why, but at the same time _needing_ to…

"Wait," he croaked, his hand trembling. Another quake of pain and Takato fell over to the side, unconsciousness smashing him brutally back down to the floor.

**…**

A/N: The above match comes from what rules and cards I could find on the digimon card game, namely the Digi-Battle Card Game. I'm sure there are all kinds of holes in the match. Both players appear to take their turns through the game phases as opposed to other CCGs, where each player has a turn and goes through the phases of play on their own. The game is also structured around very small decks (as small as 29-30 cards). Cards from the deck appear to be the payment offered for digivolving to Champion (exception card effects) and also appear to be meant to be played in ten round matches, though I'm not sure as it's also geared towards whoever reaches a certain set score (100 or 1000 depending on the version of the game…and there are a few). The actual match between digimon themselves is actually rather interesting, being a rock/paper/scissors setup involving three battle types with each digimon having a specific type that a digimon must throw that type of attack at (A attack vs an A type digimon for example).

If I am remise in any of the rules and game play, feel free to inform me and I will edit as best as I can. Given the complexities of the game, I'm tempted to use a version that I created waaay back in a chapter of Less than Human, but…eh. We'll see what happens.

This chapter was a bit of a challenge as it has a rather…YuGiOh flair to it, and I've never written that sort of story before. Since the trick to storytelling is 'show, don't tell' the challenge came in showing the game play rather than bore everyone with game mechanics that I barely even understand myself, never mind what the cards do themselves. Usually I tend to leave out the details, but a friend wanted a chapter that showed Rika curb stomping Takato in a match, which required a look at some old sites I bookmarked a number of years ago. I wasn't planning on it at first, but I decided to include Takato's 'goof' because it's just so…Takato-ish. It also comes from personal experience—myself and friends. There's nothing more dooming than having all the conditions for victory, only to screw up the order of your moves and have a technicality nail the coffin shut. Wording is very important in these kinds of games after all.

Oh, and for the record, Rika had a way of taking him out even if he managed to pull off his move in the first place.

Now concerning Takato not using his combo…I honestly couldn't find the cards, or at least a translated version of what the cards did. Likewise I can't seem to find anything that shows whether or not digimon that fly have an advantage over others. The closest that I _could_ find was a LadyDevimon card, but I couldn't find any similar rules on other well-known fliers. Blagh.

Anyway, 'till next time.

-Crazyeight


	10. Misty Mirrors

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

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Chapter: 10/ Misty Mirrors

A long-eared, cream colored digimon with absurdly long ears burst through the door to the game store, scrambling beneath the legs of frightened customers, doing its best to not get stepped on…or spotted for that matter. The first was easy, as the diminutive Rookie, Terriermon, had plenty of years of experience in the matter, having great familiarity with the streets of Shinjuku (in spite of most of those years being spent riding on the shoulder of his human partner). The last was, unfortunately, problematic. While he had more than ample experience with not being seen, his appearance lent a certain notability that would be difficult for anyone to _not_ notice, even in the midst of the chaos coming from the shop. The mist of the digital field, coupled with his size would probably help, but that was no guarantee.

So Terriermon moved rapidly, taking care to make sure that his ears remained un-stepped on. Scrambling off to the side and losing himself among the wall of stampeding feet, he ducked into an alleyway and bounded off a trashcan lid, taking to the air, whereupon he expanded his ears as though they were mini-parachutes. Slowly he descended onto the shop's rooftop, and let out a small sigh upon landing.

_That was close,_ Terriermon thought, patting his chest with one tiny paw. _Momentai._

Opening his perfectly round, black eyes, he turned back toward the direction of the shop's entrance, taking in the crowd of people that had gathered around it. Conversations and surprised exclamations were rapidly filling the air. Terriermon's eyes narrowed slightly in worry.

_I can see them forming,_ his mind cried as he bent forward for a closer look, recognizing what was happening. To the average onlooker, the crowd and the specks of mist that flowed out of the store appeared to be normal, but Terriermon was far from average. He could see trace lines of energy flowing from the crowd of people, particularly the children and teenagers, and out to the fog as their attention became focused—_riveted_—to it. As he watched, the individual particles of the digital field began to clump together and _bubble. _A shape began to appear.

_Aw nuts._ Terriermon clenched his eyes shut, his mind racing._ There's no way momentai is going to get me out of this one. I've got to do something about that digital field! But…but what?_

He couldn't think of anything…at least, not without more direct intervention.

_One good Terrier Tornado ought to do the trick, but if I do that, I'll be spotted for sure! And that'll cause even more trouble! Oh man… And I'm supposed to be one of the good guys! Henry swore that things would be okay and that we couldn't come back! So why…?_

Terriermon forcefully interrupted his train of thoughts. He was rapidly running out of time.

_Okay! Take out evil mist, think of a solution to the next problem later. Maybe if I put on my doll act again everyone'll fall for it._

Terriermon stepped up onto the ledge of the building.

_ …Yeah. Maybe when pigs fly._

He took a deep breath, and began to say the words that would activate one of his signature attacks:_ Terrier Tornado._ No sooner did he get the first word out though that the fog barrier did something rather bizarre. It _sputtered_ and after a small electrical jolt, broke apart, vanishing quickly from view, as though it had never been. Terriermon was quick to get down from his vantage point, but he stayed close enough to see what was going on. The people standing in front of the shop still glowed with an aura of blue energy, but it wavered around them, uncertain as to what to do. After several long seconds, during which more people tumbled out of the building, shouting in surprise, and the sound of sirens began to ring out upon the air, the aura flickered and disappeared from view.

Terriermon let out a sigh of relief.

_Whew. Boy, am I glad _that's_ over with. I don't know what I would have done without Henry's help if one of those Id things popped up, looking for trouble._ He raised his head toward the sky questioningly. _I wonder what made it disappear though. Ah heck, never mind that! How did I get here in the first place?_ Raising one paw, he tapped his chin thoughtfully._ It was…weird. For a second there I could have sworn that I heard someone…calling out to me. Someone that sounded like…Henry._

_ But that can't be right. Henry shouldn't even remember me right now. Unless…_ His frown deepened. _Unless he remembers things again. _Terriermon's eyes lit up, hope sparking in their dark depths. _Maybe…Maybe he's got one of those DART things that he made before we all left! If that happened then…then pretty soon things'll go back to being the way they were, just like in the old days!_

Terriermon resisted the urge to whoop in joy. In spite of his glee at the possibility of returning to his partner after so long apart from him, he couldn't take out of account the possibility that his presence would merely cause things to go wrong, nor could he discount the possibility that he could be wrong and that Henry didn't remember him, nor call him back to the real world. He had to explore, watch, observe, and stay hidden.

_Shouldn't be too tough,_ he thought, continuing to tap his chin. _After all, it's not like Henry moved to another country while I was gone. Right?_

As he thought about this, some distant movement caught his attention. Looking up, he zeroed in on an object flying in the sky. Narrowing his eyes, he scrutinized it for a moment before they widened once more in recognition.

"Wizardmon!" he whispered. With that, he bounded off to the side, taking care so as to not be seen.

**…**

Rika, for reasons she didn't know herself and didn't care for a moment to think about, slipped on a pair of violet sunglasses over her eyes, shielding them from the thick mist that unexpectedly appeared around her. In spite of how thick the fog was, her vision actually improved. She glanced around her, her heart thumping painfully in her chest while she heard the surprised shouts and cries of other tournament players.

_Did that dork's deck just explode?_ she found herself thinking as she forced herself to calm down enough to analyze the situation. She frowned slightly. Unlike the kid she was playing against, she had been paying attention. More accurately one of his cards had been the one that exploded, and an explosion it was. Different from the usual sort, not in so much that it came from a card but rather that it produced mist as opposed to fire and smoke—something which surprised her when she breathed it in while surprised, and found herself not coughing at all. And that was not all either. There was the force of the explosion as well, knocking her out of her chair and to the floor, nearly knocking the breath out of her.

There was more as well.

She took a guarded look around her. The small, black creature that appeared within seconds after the 'explosion' and took off after saying…something (Takatomon? Momentai?)…was gone, having run off. She frowned.

_I didn't actually see that…did I?_

But there was the mist, seemingly taunting her to doubt its reality. She could feel it on her skin, cold and clammy. She shivered suddenly, cursing the cold. She hated it.

Abruptly the fog disappeared, and Rika blinked in surprise. She was not the only one, but at the moment that didn't matter. Taking off her sunglasses, she took a gander at the seat in front of her, where her opponent had been. It was empty, but the spot in front of it had his cards scattered all over the place. One of which was a burnt, half-destroyed card.

There was also a pair of green sneakers peeking out from behind the corner of the table, lying on the floor.

Cautiously, she stepped around the table, one hand drifting over to the card. It hesitated over it for a moment, her eyes flitting over to the clearly unconscious boy lying on the floor—her opponent, the _Little Boy—_before returning to the card. She felt the strangest urge to make sure he was all right, but she quickly squashed it.

_He's not my problem,_ she thought, flipping the card over. The image of the digimon was gone. In its place was a burnt hole that stretched from side to side horizontally, causing the card to split in two almost as soon as she picked it up. She still held the top half though, having picked it up by that end. Turning it around, she read the kanji.

_Terriermon._

_ "Momentai,"_ giggled a voice in her mind, and Rika dropped the card, as though it shocked her. She pressed her thumb and forefinger together, massaging them for a moment before furrowing her brow once again.

_I've had enough,_ she thought, taking in the mood of the crowd around her. It was clear that the tournament was going to be canceled because of this mishap. If there wasn't going to be anything else, than she might as well…

Rika hesitated again and looked down at the unconscious boy. She looked up at the crowd. None of them seemed to have noticed him yet, and the judges and store attendants were still trying to get everyone to calm down. People continued to rush toward the store's exit. How long would it take for the fire department to arrive?

Rika bit her lower lip as sudden indecision tugged at her, or was it her conscience? She looked back down at the unconscious boy.

_All right,_ she thought, giving in and stepping over to him, kneeling down until she was balanced on her heels. _You win. You may be a creep, but you need someone to make sure you're okay._

The question was, how did she do that? Pressing her lips together in furtive agitation, she looked him over carefully with her eyes, not liking the idea of having to get any closer than this to find out anything more.

_He's mumbling something,_ she noted, hearing barely inaudible words emerging from his mouth.

As she watched, she noticed a tear start to creep out from the corner of one eye.

**…**

_Clocks ticked and tocked against a purple sky, and Takato floated among them._

_ "What…happened?" he wondered, looking around him in confusion. "This place…is really weird. Even weirder than my usual dreams."_

_ Takato shifted in the air, causing himself to move slightly to the side._

_ "Floating, huh?" Deciding to experiment with his surroundings, he made swimming motions, directing his movement. He sped up slightly, his path becoming more directional. Unexpectedly, he found himself chuckling. "Cool. This is how I swim in my dreams."_

_ For a brief second, he thought he could hear someone, a girl's voice, sarcastically tell him "you and your dreams" but he quickly dismissed it. There was a distant feel to it, more as if from a memory than anyone actually being in the space with him, and he could not, for the life of him, remember anyone saying that to him. Certainly not any girl._

_ But there was a voice he heard that he could not dismiss quite so easily._

_ "Tamer…"_

_ It was the sound of the voice that he had seen in a cloud yesterday, only there was less of an animalistic sound to it. Perhaps it was the fact that the voice was directed towards him, or perhaps it was because Takato was struck by a strange sense of familiarity that went beyond the chance meeting in the streets the day before. All he knew was that an odd sense of joy filled him, as well as a desire to see the speaker. Turning in the direction of the voice, he found himself staring at a tall, crimson dinosaur with a flowing white main of hair behind its head. Half of its face was missing, obscured by a dark shadow, but a solitary golden eye, oddly kind and full of life, belying its animal-like appearance, stared at him. In fact, it almost seemed relieved…even _glad_ to see him._

_ "Tamer…" it said to him. _

_ Takato tilted his head to one side and took a look around to make sure that it was really _him_ that the creature was speaking to. It seemed to be the case—there was no one else around—so he looked back, but no less perplexed._

_ "Um…hi?"_

_ The large, crimson dinosaur's eye lit up and something that could be seen as a smile broke across its mouth._

_ "Takato!"_

_ Takato was taken aback by this sudden acknowledgement._

_ "Do I know you?"_

_ The dinosaur's face became crestfallen, and all at once Takato felt bad, as if he had stomped on the creature's feelings._

_ "Oh… That's right. You probably don't remember me, do you Takato?"_

_ "Uh…I'm afraid not," Takato replied, scratching his head. "Who are you?"_

_ "I'm Growlmon, Takato. Sorry if you don't remember me, and that I look scary, but you'd remember me better as Guilmon. I'm your partner, and you created me." The creature—_digimon _if it's 'mon' attachment at the end meant anything—smiled. "We've fought side by side for a really long time. Until we had to say goodbye." Growlmon's face fell again. "I don't really understand why. Impmon and Terriermon are always telling me I'll never understand a lot of things."_

_ Takato was silent for a moment, digesting all of this. This…this wasn't happening…was it? It was all just a dream. Yet, why did his chest feel heavy, as if remembering some old pain from having something torn away from him?_

_ Growlmon continued._

_ "Takato…we need you. I know you don't remember a whole lot anymore, but we need you and the others to fight again. I…"_

_ Growlmon's body became distorted, and static burst across him. His eye widened in surprise and panic._

"…_ato… Lo… …u. Tak… …m… …hand… …akato."_

_ Growlmon's words came out broken and barely comprehensible, but the sight of him raising one clawed hand in a desperate gesture, a pleading look on the remains of his face, was more than enough of a translation for what he was trying to say. Takato felt something rise within him. A sense that he had been expecting this…had known this would happen all along, that he would be called to something…something he had done before. Something that needed finishing. This sense caused him to reach out towards Growlmon, his fingers stretching towards his white claws._

_ "Takato!"_

_ "We will fight! One more time!" Takato shouted, the sense exploding outward from him and directing his movements. "TOGETHER!"_

**…**

"AAAHHH—uh…huh?"

Takato blinked as he found himself holding onto the leg of a chair, his rather barbaric howl dying down in his mouth almost as soon as it came. Looking around him, he found himself suddenly the center of attention. Everyone had abruptly quieted down and was staring at him. Feeling his face heat up, Takato gave a nervous laugh and released the leg of the chair, rubbing the back of his head.

"S-Sorry," he said. He staggered to his feet, quickly dusting himself off and trying desperately to ignore the stares that he was getting.

_Huh?_ Takato dabbed at one eye as he noticed that his vision seemed to swim. Liquid touched his fingertip. _Was I crying?_

He shook his head, hoping to clear it. his mind felt badly fogged up. And yet, the dream had been so…real.

_Growlmon…Guilmon… Why was I dreaming of a digimon that I created? And why did it feel like he's really existed? That's…that's crazy._

He found himself laughing harshly to himself. A laugh that was abruptly cut off as he remembered the last time he thought a dream had been 'unrealistic. Turning, he found himself staring into the violet eyes of the Digimon Queen, who was looking at him as if he had lost his mind.

Once more, Takato felt his face start to heat up in embarrassment.

"Um…s-sorry about that," he quickly apologized. "I probably freaked you out, didn't I?"

The girl was silent for a moment as she stood up. She looked at him, keeping her gaze level with his. Her cool, violet eyes seemed to penetrate his, deep and considering, yet revealing nothing about herself at the same time. Takato felt a bit uncomfortable at this treatment, and glanced down at the wreck of his deck.

_Ohhh…man! My cards! I used weeks of allowance plus all my Christmas and birthday money getting those!_

Takato didn't have time to mourn the condition of his cards for very long as a hand fell upon his shoulder, causing him to jump in surprise.

"Ah!" he spun around, and found himself staring at a woman wearing a hospital uniform—a paramedic.

"Are you all right?" she asked him. "You shouted earlier."

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, I'm fine! Just…um…just a weird dream?" Takato put on a nervous smile. _Well, it's not like I'm lying. Hey, why is she here?_

A memory tickled at the back of his head, and after pawing at it for a moment, he felt like kicking himself for not remembering sooner. The explosion, the cool mist, the creature with glowing eyes…

Takato shivered involuntarily and the paramedic took note.

"Come this way," she said, urging him towards the exit. "It looks like you may be in shock."

"Wha…?" Takato protested. "But I feel fine."

"Even so, you should get yourself checked out. _Everyone_ needs to." The paramedic gave a pointed look at the red-haired girl. "And the police will need a detailed report anyway…"

"But…my cards…" Takato didn't want to keep protesting, especially about something that wasn't as important as his health, but all of a sudden a distinct urge to keep track of his belongings took hold of him. Not that it mattered though, as his shoebox, his deck hastily gathered and tossed inside, was abruptly shoved in front of his face by none other than the red-haired girl.

"Take it and stop your whining," she said fiercely, her violet eyes seemingly blazing. "Don't be so…Goggleheaded!"

Takato reacted as if he had been punched. All the strength went out of him, and he stood there for a moment, blood draining from his face. The orderly looked back and forth between the two worriedly before focusing on the girl.

"Just…come along. Hang onto his things for the moment, would you? We have a lot of people to check out."

"Yeah," said the Digimon Queen, her gaze flitting over to the paramedic for a moment before returning to Takato. "Whatever."

The paramedic pulled Takato urgently, swiveling around and Rika tucked the shoebox under one arm and began to follow. As soon as she did so a dizzying sensation swept over her and she swayed slightly on her feet. She grabbed the back of a chair for balance until the dizzy spell wore off. She looked up at the retreating backs of the paramedic and Takato, a confused expression painted onto her face.

_Gogglehead…_ she thought, shaking her head. _Just…where did _that_ come from?_

Rika got the distinct feeling that the question was only just the beginning.

**…**

A/N: Another chapter down. Would have had this finished yesterday, if not for the extreme heat. Blagh. Heat waves suck. Anyway, Terriermon is back in the land of humanity, and Rika appears to be remembering things as well now. And not only that, Growlmon hints at things that will grow in the future. More questions and few answers it seems, but hopefully that will change in later chapters.

'Till then.

-Crazyeight


	11. Recovery: Part 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 11/ Recovery: Part 1

Rika kept her distance while she watched the boy—Takato Matsuki, she had learned from the two doofus friends that joined him while he was looked over by the paramedics—a frown on her face. At least, as much distance as she could get, as even with the inclusion of more ambulances there just weren't enough people to give everyone in the game shop a quick check over and get their names and relevant information in case anything happened. As such, she garnered more than her fair share of looks from Takato's friends, not to mention this lovely gem:

"Oh _man!_ How come Takato got to play against such a pretty looking girl?"

This was from the boy with rather spiky brown hair and a black shirt with a crucifix-type design. Like Takato, she was quick to find out his name, mostly from the admonishments of his friends. Rika grimaced in recollection. For about five minutes, she had to endure various compliments from 'Kazu' in regards to her skill as well as beauty. She could have put up with this, were it just about her talent at the card game—an acknowledgement of her skill and superiority—but not about her appearance. She could have cared less about what anyone thought of how she looked.

She had been about ready to put her fist through Kazu's face when Takato interrupted, surprising them both, and told him to knock it off. The paramedic chipped in his two cents on the matter, and that ended that…for now.

Shifting her arms around her chest, her fingers tightened themselves and loosened. Tightened and loosened.

She glanced over her shoulder at where Takato was, sitting on the back of the ambulance while a paramedic finished with her tests. He had a relieved smile on his face. She narrowed her eyes as he made a rather stupid sounding joke.

_How can he be so…so…_ She gritted her teeth against saying the word that was already forming on her lips. _…stupid?_ she finished finally, though in her mind the word didn't hold as much weight as the one on her mind._ He just had something really weird happen to him. That card of his…it _blew up_ in his face! And he hasn't even told anyone about it! What's going through that head of his?_

Her fingers tightened around her arms again. She hadn't said anything about it either.

_What's going through my head?_

Rika closed her eyes. No sooner did she do so then an image flash through her mind. An image of a group of other kids around her age, including the three that she stood with now. And there were digimon with them too. A Renamon, an Impmon, a Terriermon, a Guardromon…she could name each and every one of them. Well, all except for one that is, a red, dinosaur-type, almost as tall as the Renamon, with a white stomach and a Hazard symbol on its chest. She couldn't put a name to it. Was it a new one that hadn't been released yet? Thoughts and feelings, some of which felt completely alien to her, yet horrifyingly familiar, surged through her.

_Just what is going on with me?_

Her brow knotted as the flash ended. Reopening her eyes, she glanced again at Takato. For a second, his crimson gaze met hers and she quickly looked away.

_This…is just too weird. First he tells me that he saw me in a dream, and then his card blows up while I'm cleaning his clock! Now I'm seeing things. I wonder if that weird fog had anything to do with it…_

That wasn't quite it though, and she knew it. It had all started when she…

"All right miss," the paramedic said, catching her attention. "It's your turn."

Rika turned towards the woman.

"I feel fine," she grated. The paramedic sighed.

"Just because you feel fine doesn't mean that you are. We have to check everyone out to make sure that there's nothing wrong. No exceptions."

Rika held the paramedic's eyes for a moment before sighing in exasperation.

"Fine." She glanced over at Takato and his friends again before returning her attention to the paramedic. "We get to go home after this, right?"

"If we don't find anything wrong with you, then yes. You get to go home." The woman offered her a comforting smile. "This won't take very long. You'll be able to take off very quickly. It's looking like things weren't as bad as we thought they were."

Rika raised an eyebrow at that. She was just about to ask what the woman thought the situation was when Takato spoke up:

"Um…excuse me?"

She turned toward him, an annoyed look rapidly forming on her face.

"What?" she asked as coolly as possible. The boy gave a nervous laugh and rubbed the back of his head anxiously.

"I…uh…I just wanted to say that…um…I'm sorry that our match ended so quickly. I mean, because of that weird fog stuff and everything, and…"

"Are you getting to the point sometime soon?" Rika asked irritably as she took a seat on the back of the ambulance. "You're done here. Shouldn't you be getting home before your parents start getting worried?"

Takato paused and grimaced. Kazu was quick to jump in.

"Hey!" the other boy exclaimed angrily, all the previous awe that he had heaped upon her vanishing quickly.

_Typical,_ she thought, making a mental _hmmph_ at his attitude.

"Just because you're the Digimon Queen," Kazu continued to rail against her, "doesn't mean you have to act like a snot, you know! I mean, sure, Takato sucks and everything, but he just wanted to say that he had fun playing against you!"

"Kazu…" began Takato, and Rika sighed, hearing the irritation in his voice.

"Glad you had fun, Little Boy," she said coolly, the tone in her voice indicating that this was clearly the end of the conversation. Takato watched her for a moment before giving her a slight bow, again surprising her. With that, the trio turned and left. Rika watched them go for a moment before turning back to the paramedic.

"Let's get this over with."

**…**

"Man. She's crazier than a fruit salad," Kazu grumbled, throwing an angry look at the red-haired girl as he, Takato, and Kenta made their way through the crowd. "Why'd you have to go and thank her for, Chumley?"

"Um…Kazu?" began Kenta, adjusting his glasses. "Don't you think you'd better just let it go? I mean, we did just have something really weird happen at the game shop…"

"Yeah! What the heck was that? And what was the deal with that weird fog? Did any of you guys see what the deal with that was?" He glanced at Takato. "It looked like it came from your end, Chumley. I didn't get a good look, but it rolled in from your direction…hm?" Kazu raised an eyebrow and snapped his fingers in front of Takato's face, causing the boy to cry out in surprise.

"Ah!"

"Geez. What's up, Chumley? You off in dreamland again? Seeing that girl of yours?"  
>"He probably hurt his head," said Kenta. "You heard him scream right. He was lying on the ground."<p>

"I'd laugh at the screaming part if it weren't for what happened." He furrowed his brow and looked at his friend with great concern. "You okay, Takato?"

"Yeah," Takato said, running a hand through his hair. "My head hurts a little. It's just…" For a minute, his eyes became distant. "…I don't know. It's probably nothing."

"Oookay…" Kazu looked at him disbelievingly. "Did you hit your head on that floor really hard or something? After what we just went through, there's no way anything can be 'nothing'."

Takato bit his lower lip and took a look around. Kazu and Kenta followed his gaze, finding a number of black vans parked along with ambulances and fire trucks. Kazu remembered them having shown up just scant minutes after the emergency vehicles, and a bunch of people wearing hazmat suits and regular, government agent-type suits spilled out.

"Yeah, I'm sure they're part of some big conspiracy. Maybe we should wait until we're, you know, away from the suits." Kazu's serious tone disappeared suddenly as he broke out laughing. "Takato, you're letting your imagination run away from you. You need to lay off the TV, man."

"Hmmm…" Takato pressed his lips together and one hand went up to massage his forehead. "I…guess. It's just…I thought I saw something in that fog. I think…" Takato shook his head. "You guys'll think I'm crazy for thinking this, but…I think it was a digimon."

Kazu and Kenta stared at him with surprised looks on their faces. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Kazu spoke in a voice that was completely deadpan.

"You _really _need to lay off the TV bud. You sound crazier than a fruitbat."

Takato sighed, and Kenta adjusted his glasses.

"What makes you think it was a digimon?" he asked. Kazu looked at Kenta, stunned.

"Don't tell me you're going to believe what he's saying? Digimon? Real? Give me a break!"

"I'm not saying that I believe him," replied Kenta. "I'm just wondering what makes him think that."

"I don't know," said Takato, rubbing his head again. "It's just…I know I saw something in that fog. It spoke to me, and it seemed to know me." His hand hesitated in its path on his head. "Er…though for some reason it called me 'Takatomon'…"

Kazu snorted, trying to hold back a laugh, only to fail within milliseconds. Kenta couldn't help but allow a small smirk to play across his face as well.

"Takatomon?" asked Kazu. "I gotta say, Chumley, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard come from you, and you've told me a _lot_ of weird stuff before. What's it going to be next time? You're going to digivolve? Maybe you should digivolve yourself into someone who at least makes sense."

"Ohhh…_man!"_ Takato groaned. "I _knew_ you guys would act like this! This is why I said it was probably nothing."

"Sorry, bud." Kazu clapped him on the shoulder in a companionable manner. "But you make stuff sound weird. It's kind of your fault you know. So you saw something and you heard someone mangle your name. Could have been the girl. I've got the feeling that she'd do that any day of the week."

"It wasn't her," Takato told him firmly, hardening his eyes. "Whoever—_whatever_—it was that spoke to me, had a voice that sounded like a little kid. Rika doesn't sound like that."

"Rika?" Kazu and Kenta raised their eyebrows as one again. "Who's Rika? The Digimon Queen?"

"I…ah…" Takato suddenly became all too conscious of the cool air on his skin, and for an instant a sense of unreality washed over him. He came out of it as Kazu's hand again settled on his shoulder, this time not clapping, and he had a worried feel to his touch.

"Hey dude? You okay? You look like you're ready to pass out or something?"

"Maybe we should take him back to the paramedics," began Kenta, but Takato shook his head.

"I'm fine. I just…I guess it's because I hit my head." He offered them a weak, tired smile. "Maybe you're right, and this is all because of that." He sighed. "You know, I think I'll just go straight home. I think I've had enough for one day."

"Uh…sure, Chumley." Kazu tilted his head to one side, his concern not lessening. In fact, it was increasing. He returned his friend's smile, but with much more bravado than he actually felt. "We'll walk you back, just in case you happen to trip on your shadow this time. You've done it before you know."

"Oh ha, ha, Kazu."

**…**

As Takato, Kazu, and Kenta walked away, they were watched by one man in a dark suit, wearing sunglasses and flipping a lighter open and closed obstinately. His eyebrows were furrowed together darkly as they focused on the three children. The lighter opened and closed with slow, almost deliberate clinks of metal on metal.

_Did that child just say that he saw a digimon?_ he wondered.

His lighter clicked closed, a breach amidst the lack of answers to his unspoken question.

**...**

Henry's feet struck down the streets, skillfully dodging people through skills obtained from years of hard battle.

_Years that don't really exist anymore,_ he noted, but his mind was quick to banish the thought, instead opting to put all of its attention on the here and now. Terriermon…_Terriermon_ was in the real world! His heart ached to see him…_needed_ desperately to see him. He came to an intersection, heart beating a furious, painful race in his chest while his lungs gulped down air by the truckload. He pulled out the device that he had received earlier, keeping it low just enough to keep anyone from noticing it, and the holographic circle appeared above its screen.

_He's on the move,_ Henry thought, his eyes widening. _Terriermon! You _know_ better than to do that in the human world! If someone sees you…_

Another dot appeared on the holographic circle. The image of a Wizardmon appeared above it, and Henry felt his world take on a whole new complication.

_…oh. Oh. _His hand tightened around the device. _Damn it._ The circle disappeared and Henry looked up at the sky, scanning it for any sign of the two digimon he was looking for._ Well, I guess that explains Terriermon's apparent lack of judgment. A digimon made it through into the real world? How long ago? Takou didn't mention it, but he said that he needed my help in fixing things. This…this could be recent. _He scowled and raised the device again, the holographic circle reappearing once more. The two dots indicating the digimon were now on the edge of the circle._ I won't get there fast enough at the rate I'm going. I'll lose them! I have to get there…fast!_

Scanning his surroundings, Henry quickly spotted an alley and ducked into it.

_Okay. Let's see if this still works,_ he thought, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. _Just like in the digital world. Focus. Think against gravity…that it can't hold you down. Empty your mind, and…jump!_

Henry's legs propelled him upward. He soared into the air and his flight path curved onto the rooftop of a building. No sooner did his feet touch down on the roof was he back into the air again, rebounding at an even faster rate, going even farther than before. A soft glow of green light materialized around his body and Henry emptied his mind of all thought save for the need…the _desire_ to reach his partner as quickly as possible. The possibility that he could be spotted didn't even intrude upon his mind. He didn't dare allow it too. Deep down, he knew that such a thought only invited it to happen rather than simply risk it.

He was practically flying now. Not quite, but he was still defying gravity in much the same way as a stone does when tossed. He could feel himself beginning to arch down toward the ground, gravity slowly but surely working its inexorable force upon his body. But his exertions had done their job. He could now see two specks ahead of him, one of them smaller than the other and with two, long appendages spread outward while the other, larger, rode on some kind of stick or wand—a broom, Henry knew all too well. He had no doubt in his mind as to who they were, though for lack of there being anything else in the air that fit the description. Henry turned his attention toward the next upcoming rooftop, gauging his speed and whether or not he would be able to land on it.

_Hopefully I'll land safely,_ he thought. He instantly regretted doing so. The thought sent a tremor through his mind, and as he landed on the roof, his shins failed to clear the ledge, smashing into it with tremendous force and causing the bones to snap in two. White, bright hot pain flashed through his mind and body, sending a great shout tearing free from his mouth. He collapsed on the roof, his hands grasping desperately at its smooth surface as his ruined legs, bent horribly at angles they weren't meant to, threatened to drag him back out into the freedom of the air and the prison of gravity. Blotting the pain out of his mind and biting into his lip, he hauled himself up and over the ledge, crashing onto the roof. He lay there for a few moments before flipping himself over to inspect the damage. He nearly shouted again in pain as he did so, and tears sprang unbidden from his eyes. Blinking them away, he looked first ahead, and then down.

Doing so took more courage than a thousand battles, but he had to see. He had to _know_ how bad it was.

It was at once what he expected, and worse than he thought. White, broken bone stabbed out from red, bleeding flesh. The legs from which they sprung, hung limply and twisted. For a moment, Henry could only rejoice in the fact that he was apparently in shock, as the pain had lost some of its hold over him. It didn't stop his breaths from coming out in sharp, ragged gasps, or his head from pulsing and sweating, and it sure didn't do a thing to keep his body from convulsing and trembling. Henry threw his head back, small droplets of sweat flying free, and laughed harshly.

"What was it that Rika always used to call something like this?" he cackled, a most unnatural sound for this normally calm, logical boy. "Oh yeah…a Goggleheaded move." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could feel the pain returning in vicious waves. How soon did he have before the surf broke upon the shores of his consciousness?

_Not very long,_ he thought, wincing as he shifted his buttocks, sending an icy shard of razor-sharp pain cutting its way along his nerve endings. _Okay. Let's do this again. Deep breaths. Slow…calm. Don't rush it. Blot out the pain. It doesn't exist. Your legs are fine. My legs are fine. There is no pain… It doesn't exist._

Calm fell over him, and steadily the pain began to subside. He maintained his empty state of being though. He knew, from experience, that he could not afford to lose it just yet.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Henry let go a gasp of deep, bone-weary relief and opened his eyes. The pain was gone, replaced by a feeling of being 'flushed clean', so to speak. Looking down at his legs, he was pleased to find that they were no longer twisted, and that the bones which had just minutes ago were sticking out, were now back inside, buried beneath skin and muscle where they belonged. Clothing which had been torn and soaked crimson with blood, was now back to normal. Slowly, carefully, he got to his feet, his shoes scraping on the rooftop. He stood there for a moment, checking his balance before taking a single, solitary step.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm going to have to be careful with them for a few hours," he muttered to himself. "That…could come back if I'm not."

As if to confirm his fears, a dull throb lanced up his legs and they buckled slightly. He kept his calm however, and with another quieting of his mind, focusing it with slow, deep breaths as he had been taught by his martial arts teacher, Chou sensei. He felt himself become empty and clear. The pain disappeared and his legs strengthened. Opening his eyes, he ignored his legs for now, not bothering to look down at them. They would either support him, or they wouldn't.

_As long as I don't think about them, then their injuries shouldn't return. And the longer the better off I'll be._ He strode across the roof, getting feeling back into them before getting down into a crouch. His eyes scanned the skies again, trying to locate their quarry before…

_Wha…?_ His eyes widened as they fell upon a familiar, cream-colored digimon with long, rabbit-like ears. A smile was on the creature's face. A smile that was reflected on Henry's own. As tears welled up in his eyes, he barely noticed the presence of the Wizardmon next to the rabbit-like creature.

"Jeez Henry," the long-eared dog-bunny laughed as he floated down toward Henry, his ears having expanded so as to act like a parachute. "I always knew you'd cause nothing but trouble for yourself when I'm not around."

Henry let out a choking sob that was half joy, and he wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Terriermon…"

"Momentai, Henry. Momentai."

**…**

A/N: Believe it or not, this chapter doesn't present any new questions. Rather it presents an answer that was used in the show, albeit in a slightly less graphic manner than what was presented here for poor Henry. Anyone who guesses right shall win kudos bars (two truck full's).

Until the next chapter.

-Crazyeight


	12. Recovery: Part 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 12/ Recovery: Part 2

With Ayaka and Miki securely tucked away until they woke up, 'Jeri Katou', or more accurately the J-Reaper, plodded down the street, unmindful of the people around her, a cool, almost empty look on her face that caused people to shy away from her. One goal, one destination was in mind, and her eyes turned up towards it. Tall, gleaming, and splitting into two towers at the very top: the Shinjuku government building. The central home for the government organization known as Hypnos.

_Takou should be there,_ she reasoned as she strode past a trio of teenage girls with heavy makeup. _Henry decided that he should be the one close to Hypnos, as he is the most disinterested of parties when it came to the digital world. The Monster Makers…the Tamers…_ J-Reaper's narrowed Jeri's amber-colored eyes thoughtfully._ They were too split toward the end. Although Henry…_ A pause. _No. Henry would have tried too hard to maintain the status quo. _

As she kept her gaze on Hypnos' towers, she mused on how she could possibly gain access to the building and locate Takou without being noticed. It didn't seem at all likely, given her present form.

_Subject Jeri is 'asleep' right now due to shock. I cannot access more of my capabilities without her cooperation. Were I more complete, and not a product of the damage she suffered at my hands all those years ago, gaining access would be mere…child's play._

Jeri's eye twitched noticeably at those last two words and a small smirk tugged at her lips. Her eyes twinkled with barely heard laughter, though for the life of her, J-Reaper could not be certain as to who it came from.

_Does that constitute what humans call…a pun?_

Her jaw convulsed and before she even knew what was happening, J-Reaper found a gall of laughter tearing itself free from her lips. She stumbled slightly, leaning so heavily off-balance, both from the stumble and the unexpected laugh, that she bumped against a passing man in a business suit. Making a surprised noise, the man pushed the girl away, a disgusted look on his face. J-Reaper, for her part, did not so much as notice, and continued to trudge onward, her eyes bulging and tearing up as she struggled to put a stop to the laughing.

_Where…where is this coming from?_ she thought breathlessly, her face muscles starting to hurt painfully from the effort of the struggle. People were staring at her both curiously and worriedly, though she ignored them._ Just…where… Jeri?_

No response came up from the dark recesses of her mind. Only silence, and a vague, sense of something sleeping. Gasping for air, J-Reaper desperately searched the girl's memories for something to calm the rebellious body down. A memory floated up…

_She sat cross-legged on the roof of her home right outside her window, her eyes closed, her hands resting on her knees. Slow, deep breaths came to her, her breasts rising and falling. Rising and falling…_

J-Reaper seized on the memory as though she were a drowning grasping at a life preserver. Almost at once the galls of laughter began to slow down and recede. Relief flooded her, along with a burning heat in her cheeks. J-Reaper panted heavily and closed her eyes.

_That…that came from me. Not Jeri. Me._

The thought had a strangely sobering effect on her, and she stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, contemplating the occurrence. A low chuckle emerged from her lips like a groan.

_Of course. Why shouldn't it have? I'm not really the D-Reaper after all, and I exist solely because of this girl. _

Another chuckle.

_The human mind is a strange thing. I doubt Jeri would understand why she helped resurrect me. I…the D-Reaper…horrified her. Violated her. Used her. And yet, here I am._ She raised her hands and turned the palms upward. _Existing because of her. In this Id._

She chuckled again, but this time her face became serious.

_And that's why I need to make sure that nothing changes. Humanity is not ready for this world and what it can do…what _they themselves _can do. To it and themselves. Not yet._

An image flashed through her mind of herself, or more accurately, the D-Reaper, rising toward the sky, blood-red cables, curved, deadly sickles, and a great, gaping wound of a mouth screaming upward like an animal. J-Reaper felt Jeri's body shudder and knew it to be her own, and not Jeri's.

_The chaos was…bad enough then._

She resumed walking. As she did so, she began to wonder; would humanity _ever_ be ready?

_They thought so when they rebuilt the world the first time. We all saw how well that went._

She continued onward, her face set. She would see this through to the end, for as long as she could.

**…**

Wizardmon floated above the apartment building, gazing down at the people meandering about below. As he sat atop his staff, a thought, a curiosity of sorts, marched through his mind.

_Why am I trusting them?_

He closed his eyes and cast his mind about. He could feel their presence easily. They were strong…_very_ strong, so much so that they stood out almost as suns amidst the sea of humans. He could feel them, their essence, rippling upon the world around them. It left him feeling anxious…nervous.

_Common sense tells me that I shouldn't just trust anyone who comes along saying that they can help me with whatever's wrong with my memories,_ he thought to himself, reopening his eyes._ Yet for some reason, I trusted the Terriermon as soon as I saw him. I feel like I should know him…him and the human, Henry._

Wizardmon shifted on his staff. His memory problems were…puzzling to say the least. Frustrating to be more accurate, but he realized that his back was up against the wall. Without any proper guidance, he had no choice but to rely on what few instincts he could trust. Right now, his instincts were telling him to trust the pair. And so, for the moment, he did. And he waited.

_Hopefully I don't wait for very long,_ he thought. _Hmmm…maybe I should make sure I'm not seen._

Raising a hand in front of him, he mumbled something under his breath, and within moments, his body faded from view, becoming invisible.

**…**

Henry came to a stop in front of his apartment door and carefully knocked on it. The sound of footsteps approaching could be heard from behind the wood, and, tucked beneath one arm, Terriermon trembled.

"Henry…I don't like this. This is a bad idea."

"Not now, Terriermon," Henry told him fiercely, and for a wonder the rabbit-dog digimon quieted. The door opened, revealing Mayumi Wong.

"Oh. You're back," she said, a relieved smile crossing her face. "The way your father was telling the story I thought you were going to be gone all night."

Henry gave an apologetic smile and rubbed the back of his hair anxiously.

"I…kind of thought the same too. My friend…um…he got lost."

"I see." Mayumi crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to one side, raising an eyebrow. "Well, next time I'd like for you to at least _ask_ for permission before just up and leaving like that." She looked down at what her son held in one arm. "Um…is that…"

"A plush toy," Henry said quickly, hefting it slightly. "It's a toy digimon, Mom. You know how I'm a fan of the series…"

"And you had to rush out for this?" Mayumi asked, furrowing her brow together.

"Well…my friend was only going to be in town for a little while and he stopped by to drop this off. But he got lost trying to find my apartment."

"I…see. You told him where you lived?" She raised an eyebrow almost accusingly, wondering why he had done so. "Is he one of your online friends?"

"Er…" Henry pretended to blanch. Mayumi shook her head, buying into the expression.

"Henry. I don't want to bar you from chat rooms or anything of the sort, but please—for my peace of mind—_please_ do not just tell people where you live. I'd rather not have you getting into trouble because you didn't know someone well enough."

Henry pretended to sigh. "Sorry Mom. I'll be more careful next time."

"You'd better be. Anyway, you'd better get in here."

Henry nodded as she stepped aside, and he stepped in. Almost immediately he heard his little sister Suzie come running along the floor toward him.

"No running in the apartment, Suzie," Mayumi said in a gentle, but firm tone as she dropped down so that she was more on level with her daughter. The girl shot past her and raced over to Henry, grabbing hold of one leg and pressing herself against it tightly.

"Henwy's home! Henwy's home!" she chirped excitedly. "Yay! Yay! _Yay!"_

"Mom!" called out Jaarin from the living room. "Can you tell her to keep it down?"

"Listen to your sister, Suzie," Mayumi giggled, patting the girl on the forehead. Suzie simply giggled and looked up at her older brother. Her eyes fell upon Terriermon's currently limp form and they widened with joy.

"A _toy!_ Henwy! Is that a bunny!"

"Actually it's a Terriermon," Henry said, unlooping Terriermon from beneath his arm. "A friend gave this to me. I'll…let you play with it from time to time if you want, but I can't…um…let you do that right now. Later though, okay? I promise."

Henry felt a barely restrained shudder pass through the Rookie, and he couldn't help but laugh inside at all the old memories of Terriermon's 'play time' with young Suzie.

_Thank goodness she eased up on him once she got Lopmon…_

"Ohhh…" Suzie's eyes became downcast as her little arms dropped down from around her brother's legs. "Okay." She looked at Terriermon and within short order a cherubic smile shone once more on her face. "I think I'll name you Pwincess Pwetty Pants!"

Henry felt his mouth tug a little at the name.

_Well, at the very least that's consistent…_

**…**

Henry breathed a sigh of relief upon entering his room. He stood there for a moment, his eyes closed as he collected himself.

"So…" began Terriermon, after that moment was up. "Did you _have_ to tell Suzie that she could torture me all over again?"

"If I didn't, Mom would have been angry with me about 'not sharing with my siblings'," Henry replied. As Terriermon hopped out of his arms, Henry pushed off the door and headed over to his bedroom window, opening it. He poked his head out and looked around him.

"All right, you can come in now," he said. He felt a tickle of cold air and he pulled his head back inside just in time to find Wizardmon materializing out of thin air inside the room. Henry shut the window and nodded to him. "All right. Now we can talk." He folded his arms over his chest. "While we were on our way back here, Terriermon filled me in on what he found out when the two of you met. You…don't have any memories, is that right?"

"Not…exactly," Wizardmon said guardedly. "I seem to remember…some things, but not everything." He pointed first at Henry, and then at Terriermon. "I recognize the two of you, just as I did the girl, Jeri, from earlier today. I also recognized the monster she carries within her…"

Henry raised an eyebrow at that. "Monster? An Id…?"

"The D-Reaper, Henry," filled in Terriermon for Wizardmon. "Well, not really D-Reaper, but…you know what I mean."

"The creations of our minds," Henry nodded in understanding. "It's still an Id. So it really is starting again."

"I fought something in the city before I rescued Jeri and encountered the…D-Reaper." Wizardmon shook his head. "It looked like a…golem of sorts." He looked at the pair uncertainly. "Is that what an…Id is?" He pressed one hand against his head and winced. Pain flared up in his temples once more, though for the moment it was manageable. "Don't mind me," he said, waving at Henry. "I'm all right. But…I need answers. If you can help me…then help me."

Hennry paused for a moment before continuing.

"Id's can take any appearance," Henry resumed, eyeing Wizardmon worriedly. "In a way, they're just like digimon in that they respond to our desires and…our fears."

"Your emotions," Terriermon chimed in. "Why don't we just leave it at that."  
>Henry nodded in agreement. "But unlike digimon, they aren't an artificial organism that already existed and simply reacted to human emotions. They literally are human emotions that take shape from whatever's in their environment." He reached over toward his desk and picked up a deck of digimon cards. A light materialized around it and upon dying down, the cards were gone, replaced instead by some kind of device with a screen on it. "They don't always have to be living things though."<p>

"That was the whole point, if I remember right," said Terriermon, folding his tiny arms over his chest. "You wanted to save the world."

"Terriermon…" Henry looked at his partner, a hurt expression crossing his face.

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Henry," sighed Terriermon, and for a moment there was a weariness in his voice. "You had good intentions. But so did Takato. So did everybody. Anyway, how about we get to seeing what we can do for Wizardmon? Like, figuring out why he doesn't remember anything?"

"Yeah…" Henry took a step forward and raised the device toward Wizardmon, who involuntarily took a cautious step back. "It's all right," Henry told him. "I just need to run a scan on your data. While I do that, why don't you tell me the last thing you remember?"

Wizardmon hesitated as Henry's 'device' began to hum softly, but soon enough began to speak while Henry ran the device around him.

"I…don't remember much of anything. Small scraps. I see the two of you and another…a human wearing goggles. You're in a library and you pass me and…" Wizardmon scrunched up his face. "Ah. I was a Fresh level then. A Mokumon."

"That must have been during our first year as Tamers," replied Henry. "That was where we met Shibumi."

"Shibu—!" Wizardmon staggered suddenly as pain flared in his temples. He clutched the side of Henry's desk before he could fall, but he dropped his staff to the floor, where it hit with a soft thud on the carpet. Henry's device made a sudden, loud hum at this. "Shibumi! We were…aids of a sort," he gasped. "That's right. And then there was the D-Reaper…"

"Easy there," Henry cautioned, placing one hand on the Champion's shoulder. "You're remembering too quickly." He tapped the screen on his device and furrowed his brow. "Your data has been badly corrupted."

Terriermon raised an eyebrow. "Was he in a fight?"

"Not exactly. There are signs of damage to his wireframe, but just from this I can't tell how long ago it happened. It could have happened because of the fight he said he was in earlier today. Or it could have come from something else. But there's something else here as well. An infection?" Henry tapped the screen a couple more times. "This code…"

"What is it Henry?"

Henry didn't answer right away, and instead studied the readout for a moment.

_I recognize this code. But…why would he infect Wizardmon?_

Henry looked over at his partner, seeing the worry in his gaze.

"I…don't know yet, Terriermon," He said finally, half lying and regretting it instantly. But for now, he told himself, this was for the best. He had to be sure. He _had_ to be. "I'll need to take a closer look at this."

"Okay…" Terriermon frowned slightly. "So, are we going to tell Takou about this? Or Akari?"

Henry sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. "One of them has to know," he said finally. "But I think we should contact Akari on this one. I know Takou wanted me to keep in touch with him, but I get the feeling Akari would be better for this one. She…technically has more experience."

Terriermon tilted his head to one side in disbelief.

"Don't look at me like that," said Henry.

"Henry, that sounds like the same kind of logic Takato would apply. I'm telling you, it doesn't fit with you."

"Excuse me?" asked Wizardmon, raising a gloved hand. "Who is Akari?"

"No one," said Terriermon. Henry looked at his partner in shock.

"Terriermon!"

"What? It's true! She's only here because of Takou anyway! She doesn't even count as a person!"

"What does _that_ have to do with anything? After everything we've been through…"

"I'm not saying anything bad about her, Henry. But even Akari believes this. Remember when we talked to her before everyone on this side shut themselves off?"

Henry closed his mouth with a sharp snap. Terriermon nodded.

"She knows it. It's not her fault, but she knows it. And it's all because of the rebuilding you and the Monster Makers did." He turned toward Wizardmon. "You'll see when you meet her. If she lets you that is. And if your memory gets jolted back to normal."

Wizardmon could only stare at Terriermon with a raised eyebrow of utter confusion.

"Whatever," sighed Henry, running a hand over his forehead. "All right. We'll get a hold of Takou first. But I still want to meet with Akari. She's better at this sort of thing than Takou is anyway."

"What? You can't just 'wish' all the equipment you need into existence?" asked Terriermon sarcastically. "You've done it before."

"You _know _I need similar mass to do it, Terriermon. Preferably of the kind that won't be missed. For all the wishing we can do here, there are still limitations."

"Right, right." Terriermon snickered and hopped up onto the boy's bed. "You keep doing that," he said, pointing at the device in Henry's hand, "so I keep thinking otherwise."

Henry sighed. "Momentai, Terriermon. We'll solve this. And then we can put things back to normal."

Terriermon looked over at the dark-haired boy with a sorrowful look on his face.

"Right…" he replied before looking away.

**…**

A/N: And that wraps up another chapter. Kept it a bit short this time around as I ease myself back into the swing of things. Updates will be a bit sporadic over the course of the week due to personal issues, but I'll see what I can do with my free time.

This chapter brings out a few more answers, at least in so far as to what the Ids are and hints heavily about what has become of the world that required the reset to occur. At the same time, it brings up another question regarding Wizardmon and his role in events. What that is precisely will have to wait for another time.

Until then.

-Crazyeight


	13. Seeing in the Dark

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 13/ Seeing in the Dark

Rika pushed open the door to her home and stepped into the front yard. Quiet greeted her, for which she was grateful. She didn't call out or anything as she closed the door behind her and strode across the yard. For the moment, she wanted to be alone with her thoughts; alone with the silence. Today had been far too…rambunctious for her liking.

She stopped in front of the pond and stood there for a moment, looking at her reflection. She furrowed her brow, feeling as though she were looking at a stranger. As she looked, her gaze drifted over to the broken heart symbol on her t-shirt and her hand went up to it.

_Feels wrong somehow,_ a part of her whispered, but she quickly _harrumphed_ and stepped away, glaring at the pond as though it were the source of her latest problems. As she turned to go inside, her eyes swiveled up to the rooftop, and for an instant—the briefest of instants—she could have sworn that she saw a yellow-furred, vulpine figure perched upon it, watching her as a mother bird guards its brood…or like a ninja, waiting to pounce upon its target.

"Renamon!" she found herself gasping, her heart suddenly slamming within her chest. She blinked, and then the rooftop was clear. Had she even seen the creature…the Renamon whose card she played with her deck?

_I must be going crazy!_ she thought furiously, clenching her eyes shut and shaking her head fiercely._ What am I thinking? I must be tired or something if I'm hallucinating._ She ran a hand through her bangs, testing her temperature._ I'd better get some sleep. Today's just been too weird for me._

**…**

"I'm home!" Takato called out as he came through the door of his family's bakery.

"Hey son," Takehiro greeted, poking his head through the entrance to the kitchen with a raised eyebrow. "Back already?"

"Well…" Takato rubbed the back of his head anxiously, wondering how his parents would react to the news that there had been a rather unusual (although 'unusual' didn't quite describe it) explosion at the game shop. "The tournament was canceled. Things kinda got weird there."

"Weird, huh?" Takehiro grinned, not knowing the details of what his son was talking about. "How weird are we talking about?"

"Um…can I tell you later? I'm kind of tired right now."

"Oh." Takehiro's other eyebrow joined its brother in its arch. "Okay. Your mother's going to want you to help out…"

"I won't take too long," Takato said, kicking off his shoes. "I'll be down in a little bit."

And with that, he took off up the stairs, leaving a very confused father behind to watch his wayward son. After a moment he scratched his head through his bandana and ducked back into the kitchen.

**…**

Takato dumped his card box on the floor and collapsed into the chair of his desk, burying his face into his hands. His eyes drooped closed and he heaved an exhausted sigh.

_Just what the heck is going on around here. My dreams are coming true, weird monsters come out of fogs that just explode from out of nowhere, and my cards are blowing up in my face. _He glanced down at the pile of cards lying on the floor. _Speaking of which…_

Getting out of his chair he bent down and began to sort through his belongings, paying special attention to the pile that made up his deck. Finally he came upon one particular card that, given its destroyed status, was the obvious culprit for the explosion…however it occurred.

_It sounds so crazy no matter how I look at it,_ he thought, turning the remains over and inspecting them carefully. It was a Terriermon card. Not rare, so at the very least he could replace it easily, but its loss still pained him all the same. Takato felt a deep connection with just about anything he owned, especially when it came to his cards, so he took each loss seriously. Much like what happened with the goggles his mother discovered some months ago and threw out.

He ran a hand through his mess of light brown hair, wondering just what to make of everything that had happened so far. Dreams, fogs, monsters, exploding cards…

_Just what is going on here?_ he wondered, looking up towards the window of his room, his gaze falling upon the government building that loomed ominously over the city. He thought about what he told Kazu and Kenta before they parted ways.

_"You guys'll think I'm crazy for thinking this, but…I think it was a digimon."_

He glanced over at the Agumon statue that he had sitting atop a book shelf._ Could it be true? Is that why I keep having all these weird things happening to me? Are they real, and they're trying to communicate with me?_

He shook his head._ Nah. Things like that just don't happen to me. I'm…not cool. Everyone, even my friends, think I'm weird. I'm just a kid._

But…the question remained. _What if?_ Certainly, enough strange things had happened in such a short amount of time to warrant such questions, nor could he completely ignore them. To ignore something, everyone, including his teacher, Ms. Asagi, told him, could be potentially dangerous.

_And in Ms. Asagi's case it would be because I was in danger of failing,_ he commiserated, scratching his hair again._ But even if I am being contacted or chosen for…whatever's going on. What am I going to do about it? It's not like I have a digivice or something, or even a partner that could help me. I'm just a kid._

_ Just a kid…without a digimon…_

Once more he turned his eyes up to the Agumon statue. It sat there, frozen in the exact same position he had left it in ever since he placed it on the bookshelf. He got up and walked over to it. Ever since he became a fan of the show, Agumon had been his favorite digimon, with Veemon as a close second. Of course, Agumon won out since Takato always liked fire-breathing dragons and their dinosaur equivalents. That was why he created Guilmon, right? Of course, there was no way that Guilmon could become real, even if digimon existed. Guilmon was a made-up digimon. It was absolutely impossible for the digital world to create something that didn't exist anywhere else except for his imagination.

Right?

_Digimon are imaginary,_ a part of him realized, but another part of him—the part that liked to believe it was his common sense—ignored this voice. It also told him that he had better think about what he could do with what he had now concerning everything that happened so far.

He looked down, his brow furrowing._ Well…let's see. There's a possible digimon running around town now, and…there's that…girl I faced at the tournament. The same one from my dreams. Could they be connected?_

Takato felt as though the universe were playing a huge joke on him. He had no idea where to look for either the girl or whatever it was that came to the real world in the first place.

**…**

J-Reaper stood outside the Shinjuku government building. She had stood there for quite some time now, and for a very simple reason: she didn't know what to do.

This left her feeling more than just a little disconcerted. She wasn't used to not knowing how to proceed. Before, when she had her own body apart from Jeri, her host, knowing what to do revolved around the simple matter of multiplying and destroying everything around her, particularly humans and digimon. Things had changed since then.

_I cannot simply walk into the building and request to see any agents or employees,_ she thought, musing over this particularly gross oversight._ And doing so would merely place Jeri under observation, limiting my movements and, by extension, Subject Takou's. What can I do without arousing suspicions?_

J-Reaper narrowed her eyes at the building contemplatively.

_Perhaps if I were to access its systems from a remote terminal, to hack into Hypnos like I did before, I could get into contact with Takou._

_ Yes. Yes, that sounds like a far better plan. Now I need a computer._

A pause. J-Reaper narrowed Jeri-s eyes even further and bit the girl's lower lip in agitation.

_ Subject Jeri's family doesn't own a computer._

That…did not make the situation any easier.

_The school's computers,_ she thought. _No one is there, but I should be able to access it all the same._

Nodding to herself, J-Reaper turned and headed off.

**…**

School.

In spite of herself, J-Reaper couldn't help but feel nostalgic when she found herself standing outside its gates.

_Subject Jeri's memories are…strong right now,_ she noted, sensing a familiar warmth bubbling up from within her breast. J-Reaper placed one hand on her shirt, as though she could touch the emotion. _I wonder how close she is to becoming conscious again. I hope that she doesn't surface too soon. If she does, I'll be forced to regress for a time._

Deciding that such thoughts were detrimental to her mission, she grabbed hold of the bars and began to hoist herself up. She slipped slightly, but she was quick to tighten her hold and resume climbing. Within mere seconds, she flipped over the gate and was inside the courtyard. She looked cautiously around. Although she knew that there would be few if any staff around, there would most certainly be someone on call to keep things orderly and to ensure that no one broke in, just as she was doing now. And then, of course, there were summer classes…

So far, she saw no one.

Brushing off her dress with a fastidiousness that was quite unlike her, J-Reaper set off toward the building.

_What if it's locked?_ she a voice whisper up from deep inside her.

_Subject Jeri?_

There was no response.

_It is a good question all the same,_ she thought to herself._ The building attendants would not be so careless to leave the building so easily accessable._

J-Reaper paused in front of a window and contemplated the rocks on the ground. Of course, there would most likely be an alarm in such an event.

J-Reaper could only scowl. She wasn't used to having to think in such limited forms, even when it came to stealth. She either assumed a form or destroyed what was in front of her, and if neither were applicable, she invaded.

There was only one solution.

Closing her eyes, J-Reaper took a deep breath.

_Subject Jeri…_

There was nothing but darkness beneath her eyelids, but she imagined the girl's face, happy as ever, but at the same time containing a hidden sadness. This last was far too easy to imagine, and it almost dominated the mask of happiness that Jeri wore during this period in her life. Reopening her eyes once more, she took in her reflection and forced a smile upon her face. The smile was ghastly, without any actual feeling, and had J-Reaper any actual feelings she supposed she would have been repulsed by the visage. Shaking her head (and unconsciously blowing at a strand of loose hair in agitation), she closed her eyes once again and focused, falling into the well of darkness in the hopes that her other half—the better half—would hear her call.

_Subject Jeri. I need to talk to you. I need your help._

Still nothing. She pushed herself deeper, imagining herself falling deeper into the darkness.

_Subject Jeri. It is imperative that you establish contact with me. Your world is in danger of collapse. _A pause before she added, _Subject Takato may be in danger._

Still no response from the corners of her psyche. J-Reaper felt herself growl in frustration. Once more, it was quite unlike her.

But it did serve as a catalyst for inspiration.

She remembered her laughter from before at her unexpected 'joke'. It baffled her then, and it was quite contrary to all of her experiences, but she had to admit that it…felt good to laugh. It wasn't the same as the roaring power that rampaged through her body back when she _possessed_ her own body, separate from Jeri, but it still felt good all the same. Surely, this was what Jeri sought in her own life before being temporarily eclipsed by the death of her partner, Leomon and her own invasive capture by the D-Reaper itself.

_Subject Jeri…_

_ Jeri…_

All at once a strong breeze blew over her and the window in front of J-Reaper swung open with a sharp click, startling her. Her eyes snapped open and her nerves cried out their alarm, causing her arms to rise up defensively. After a long pause, J-Reaper lowered her arms and tilted her head to one side, confused.

"Subject Jeri," she began. "Are you there?"

Only the nodding of the window was her answer.

"I detect no audible alarms," J-Reaper mused, deciding to move on. "But this does not discount the possibility that an alarm is sounding. Subject Jeri…if I may have access to more of my functions…?"

Another pause, during which nothing happened. J-Reaper nodded, as though she had expected this. With nothing more to say, she grabbed hold of the window and hoisted herself into the classroom.

**…**

_Subject Jeri, you can be rather troublesome at times._

J-Reaper made her way through the hall, not bothering with stealth beyond simply looking around corners and keeping the sound of her footfalls as quiet as possible. The design of the building did not allow for very good infiltration, save for any storage areas and cubbies, neither of which were involved in her destination or travel route. If she were unlucky, she was caught. There were no two ways about it.

_I will have to be quick about this,_ she thought as she approached her destination. Coming to a stop in front of the school's computer room she took hold of the doorknob. It turned without resistance—all the doors in the building were unlocked she had learned—and entered.

For herself, J-Reaper felt a little bit more at home upon seeing the humming machinery of the computer lab. Not a single one of the computers were of the more modern designs, being a bit more boxy as opposed to the flat monitors, but they would serve her purposes. She didn't need much. She would quickly get in and be out of the building in short order. She knew Hypnos' systems inside and out…or at least she did during this time frame.

_The only difficulty will be in hiding my tracks using these systems. Subject Jeri won't help me beyond giving me access to this building, and I am not used to working with such primitive equipment. I will have to make do with what I can._

Setting herself down in front of the computer furthest from the door, J-Reaper placed her hands upon the keyboard and got to work.

**…**

Takou was not a happy person. Sitting in the office that Yamaki had so _graciously _given him when he built their latest firewall, he couldn't help but wonder, with more than a little trepidation, where things were going to go from here.

_Seems like it was only yesterday that we were set on a whole new era…and it all had to crash and burn. Funny how that's going to happen all over again._

He coughed lightly and glanced over at his computer, hoping to distract himself from the inevitable shakedown that Yamaki was going to give him for the failure of his quoted 'impenetrable firewall' and his absences from duty. Coupled with Tally informing him that Yamaki expected him to be at Hypnos at his 'earliest convenience', he could not help but feel a little unsettled. He never did well when it came to people getting angry at him. He could still hear his old elementary teacher getting on his case about his effort towards homework.

_Right before he smacked me upside the head with a rolled up planner,_ he mused, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head. _Iwamoto sure knew how to get his point across when he wanted to._

His cell phone buzzed and he picked it up. Recognizing the number, and feeling not in the least bit comforted by it, he hit the answer button.

"Akari," he greeted.

_"Do you want to explain to me what it is you're doing bringing Terriermon into this?"_

_ And here it comes…_

"Henry requested it," he replied, running a hand through his hair. "And Henry knows how to handle things best when it comes to this sort of thing. It's _his_ system, and I figured that the soonest we could get him to cooperate, the better for us. He'll reset everything. Don't worry."

_"Oh, I'm not the one worried. It's our so-called sponsors. You know, the powers that be? If they don't like what's happening they'll…"_

"I _know,"_ he grated, leaning forward on one arm. "I know perfectly well what they want and feel threatened by. Just keep them from breathing down my neck on this and things will be back to the way they were. The way they _think_ they should be. The less interference I have, the better." He took in a deep breath and let it out, trying to calm himself. "Can you please relay that to them?"

_"…I'll do what I can. Just watch yourself, okay? You know how this works."_

"I do. I do." There was a ping on his desktop's email account and he raised an eyebrow at it. "Look, I've got to go. 'Work' calls."

_"Right. Talk to you later."_

"Bye." Takou hung up and looked at his inbox's newest email. It was simply titled 'Digimon', though he didn't recognize the address that it came from. He sat there, his brow furrowed in careful thought before he finally clicked on it. "Okay," he began. "Let's see who this is."

It was a simple message, but it was one that caused his blood to run cold.

_Subject Takou. We need to talk to you. Meet me in Shinjuku Park._

_ -D-Reaper_

_ Oh shit…_ came the only thought in Takou's mind capable of describing this sudden and unexpected turn of events.

**…**

A/N: Almost a month has passed since this story was last updated, for which I am extremely sorry. Had to get my head screwed back on and get ready for school again. On the whole, this chapter is pretty much about getting my feet wet again and see if I can get back into the story. I had to do some rereading and reorganizing of some old notes, all the while getting motivated again, so hopefully things will be different from here on out and updates won't be so long in coming.

Until next chapter.

-Crazyeight


	14. Darkness Unveiling

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 14/ Darkness Unveiling

Henry's eyes narrowed as he looked down at his new digivice, and at the holographic image of Takou's head floating above the screen.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Is it the J-Reaper for certain?"

Off to one side, Wizardmon and Terriermon both stirred uncomfortably. Between the two, Wizardmon was more vocal.

"J-Reaper? I met that monster this morning! She…!"

"Not now Wizardmon," snapped Henry. "And try to keep it down. We don't want someone walking in!"

Wizardmon grimaced beneath the cowl of his cape, not liking the Tamer's tone.

"Momentai, Wizardmon. It's only our regular planetary devourer. I'm sure everything'll be okay."

Wizardmon glared at the long-eared Rookie. "Do you _know_ the damage that thing caused to our worlds?"

Terriermon placed his tiny hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. "Gee… Do you remember how we were _involved_ in it?"

"I…" Wizardmon blanched and a hand went to his forehead. "Sorry."

"You guys…"

Terriermon and Wizardmon both looked at Henry again.

"Oop. Sorry Henry. We'll be quiet."

The half-Chinese Tamer went back to his digivice.

"Anyway…it looks like Wizardmon can confirm this." He sighed and shook his head. "I honestly can't say that I'm surprised by this. We already knew that there were…unexpected side effects when we activated the project to begin with. Resetting the world wouldn't have changed that."

_"Just…great,"_ replied Takou in exasperation. _"This causes complications, you realize that, right?"_

"Maybe…"

_"Maybe? It's the D-Reaper! From what you and the others told me about it…"_

"Except it's not really the D-Reaper," interrupted Henry.

_"I beg your pardon?"_

"Look, I'll explain later. Where did she want you to met her?"

_"…in Shinjuku Park. Henry. You want to clue me in here? If this isn't actually the D-Reaper, than what is she? Er…it?"_

"Where in the park?" continued Henry.

_"I don't know. She—_it—_didn't specify. Very odd that, considering it's supposed to be a computer…"_

"I'll go there."

_"Henry, no! If she gets a hold of you and she's somehow able to assimilate your information like she did with Jeri the first time around, there's no telling what kind of damage she could do! She could literally remake the world!"_

"If she were really the D-Reaper, she would already have started doing that. I've got to get going. I'll talk to you later."

With that, Henry deactivated his digivice in spite of Takou's heated protests. Henry went over to his desk and grabbed a deck of cards and clipped his digivice onto his belt.

"Henry?" asked Terriermon. "You're about to do something dumb, aren't you?"

"You'd be proud of me, actually," Henry replied with a smile. "It's not often I get to be like that."

"I would…if it weren't for the fact that this is Jeri's D-Reaper persona we're talking about." He folded his arms over his chest. "It's been a while since we saw her."

"And it's a good thing we didn't tell Takou or anyone else about her either," said Henry. "No one outside of our group would have put up with Jeri staying alive, knowing that." He went over to his bedroom window and pulled it open. "Anyway, I'm going to need you to head out this way. If I took you outside right now, it would only cause everyone to wonder what's going on."

Terriermon shook his head. "I'll go, but I still don't think this is a good idea."

Henry glanced at Wizardmon. "Do you want to come along? If things get rough, we'll need all the help we can get to run out of there."

"Wait. _If_ things get rough?" Terriermon blurted. "Henry! You sounded like things were going to be okay!"

"It doesn't hurt to have a backup plan."

"Backup plan?" Terriermon scoffed. "Since when have we ever used those? We always relied on our ability to outlast anything thrown against us and making friends with everyone that tried to kill us at least once. We don't need any backup plans."

Henry ignored his friend for the time being and focused on Wizardmon. "Well?"

"I'll come along," Wizardmon said, hefting his staff. "But I don't like this. I may not understand everything…yet…but I believe this is a very bad idea. We need more power."

"If you want power, Henry and I can biomerge into MegaGargomon and wup the J-Reaper's sorry butt!"

"Terriermon…" began Henry, the old habit coming from his lips as easily as breathing despite the lack of practice. "If we did that, everything we've worked for will come apart."

"If J-Reaper goes all out, it's all for nothing anyway," Terriermon rebutted casually. "You want to start analyzing this idea now? Because once we get there, there's no turning back you know."

"We're going, Terriermon. Wizardmon?"

"On it." Wizardmon bent down and allowed Terriermon to climb onto his shoulder. With the rabbit-dog settled, Wizardmon raised a hand in front of him and he vanished into thin air. Henry waited a moment before closing the window.

"Now," he said as it shut with a click. "It's my turn to get out of here."

**…**

_Shinjuku Park,_ thought Henry as he made it to the streets in record time—in spite of his parents' surprise._ Never thought I'd be awake to appreciate this place again._

In spite of himself, he smiled. The nostalgia was stronger than ever now. He had so many good memories in this place.

_And if we want to make sure that good memories continue to be made, this had better go down smooth. Because if not…_

Henry let the thought just hang there, knowing the full implications of what could happen if things went wrong.

"Took your time getting here," giggled a voice from off to the side. Turning in its direction, Henry spied Terriermon and Wizardmon sitting on a tree branch, waiting for him. The long-eared Rookie waved one of his appendage ears at him.

"I could have flown," Henry remarked, "but I didn't want to draw attention to myself."

"Like you could have when you went to meet me?" chided Terriermon, rolling off the branch. "How are your legs by the way?"

"Never mind them," Henry said, pushing the memory out of his mind before it had a chance to solidify. "Are you ready for this?"

"Momentai." Terriermon placed his hands on his hips. "But Wizardmon and I are wondering…where are we going to find Jeri…or J-Reaper or whoever it is that's in charge? The park is a big place."

"Knowing Jeri, she probably assumed that there was only one place that anyone would know to look for her if she wanted them to find her."

"Huh?" Terriermon tilted his head to one side. "But isn't it the J-Reaper personality in control?"

"Maybe, but she's still running on Jeri's memories. That's all the information we need because that's all she has. Now come on."

Holding out his arm, Henry allowed his partner to climb up onto his shoulder.

**…**

_Akari was right,_ thought Takou, his mind in a panic as he shrugged on his jacket and stormed out of his office. _Reactivating Henry was a bad idea. What was I thinking? If he and the D-Reaper meet up…the consequences…"_

"Yamasaki."

_Crap._ Turning, Takou saw Yamaki approaching him, a dark look on his face.

"Yamaki. Sir."

"Nice of you to finally be available," Yamaki said pointedly.

"Er…yes." Takou resisted the urge to take out his DART device and use its powers to manipulate this moment. For the moment. _First see what he wants,_ he told himself._ Can't use it too often in a short period of time._

"I would like to talk to you about your performance recently," Yamaki continued. "Specifically in regards to your absence today and the recent defeat of your firewall program."

"Right." Takou also resisted the urge to shift, feeling rather self-conscious about that failure. "The one that I claimed to be unbeatable."

"What steps have you taken to improving the program?"

"Steps?" Takou felt his skin crawl. "Yes. Um…well, for now I'm analyzing the data of the digimon that breached the firewall. I…tried to track it down on my own today…" It sounded stupid saying that, but he doubted Yamaki would buy anything else, never mind that he couldn't very well tell him the truth.

Yamaki's lighter clicked closed. "That's rather dangerous of you to try, Yamasaki. These Wild Ones are dangerous. You know the protocols…"

"Oh for the love of…" Tired of this conversation, Takou took out his DART device and activated it, a sphere of blue energy slashed outward, enveloping the building for a brief moment before spreading outward. Yamaki stood frozen in place before gradually fading from view. Takou sighed in relief and pocketed his DART device. "The power of the known universe in the palm of my hand and I don't have the time to deal with a simple, gross oversight of judgment and a boss." Takou's eyebrows scrunched up in frustration. "Honestly. What _are _the worlds coming too?"

**…**

"Whoa…" Terriermon looked around him, utterly surprised as the daylight suddenly vanished into dusk following a sudden wave front of blue energy as it passed over them. "Who changed the light settings?"

"Someone used a DART device to push time forward," said Henry, a worried expression on his face. "That would mean Takou…or whoever else might have one available." He swallowed. _And it wouldn't be Akari…_

"So…how bad does this effect things?" Terriermon asked.

"Depends. That was a lot of power to cause such a large scale effect. We may end up seeing some problems later on. Whoever did this was…" Henry shuddered. "…irresponsible."

Wizardmon glanced around him, concern written on his face. "This kind of power…" he muttered to himself.

"We'll worry about it later," said Henry, pushing on. "Right now, we've got a meeting to keep."

"We'll she be there?" asked Terriermon, raising an eyebrow. "If that DART thingie pushed us forward in time…"

"She'll be there," Henry stated firmly. "DARTs only effect those that aren't awake. And if the J-Reaper remembers enough to contact Takou…"

**…**

A frown crossed Jeri's face as she noted the sudden change in light.

"The sun's position has changed," she said, her tone void of any real surprise, as though she were simply reading off from a textbook. "It now appears to be 8:00 in the evening." She tilted her head to one side. "Someone has used a DART device. Possibility: Subject Takou."

Getting up from her spot on the hard concrete stair that led to the concrete bunker, Jeri began to make her way down the steps. Her expression shifted slightly, taking on a more curious appearance.

"I will need to contact subject Jeri's family and reassure them of their daughter's safety. A complication will occur if I cannot revive subject Jeri to communicate with them. Plan…"

"Do you always talk to yourself when you're alone?"

"Terriermon…"

Following the voices, Jeri's eyes lighted upon the figures of Henry, Terriermon, and Wizardmon as they stood at the bottom of the steps, waiting for her. Henry raised a hand in a casual wave, though the expression on his face clearly told of nervousness.

"Subject…Henry. Digimon…" Her amber eyes blinked suddenly and life seemed to return to them. "Digimon…?" Her voice suddenly took on a more frightened sound, almost a whimper.

"Oh no…" Henry stepped forward as Terriermon jumped down to the ground, fear painting a picture on his face. "Jeri…Jeri don't! It's all right! It's…"

Jeri suddenly let out a loud scream and the air pulsated around her. It exploded outward, smashing into the trio and sending them crashing into the ground. The wave continued to tear outward unabated. Henry pushed himself off the dirt, horrified.

"No!" he shouted, one hand scrabbling for the digivice on his belt. "We've got to stop it before…"

The ground shook suddenly and the force reverberated through his body, causing him to drop the digivice before he could get a good grip on it. The digivice clattered on the ground uselessly and Henry grabbed at it. A shadow fell over him and he started to roll out of the way. In spite of his speed, he was going to be too late. He was going to be crushed before he had a chance to recover. He…

**"Magical Game!"**

A sudden bolt of lightning struck outward. There was a roar of surprised anger and the shadow retreated for an instant…but only for an instant. Now it _flew_ over Henry's body, and there was a sudden, loud crash and a tree was ripped to pieces. Wizardmon's shout filled the air followed by another crashing sound.

_Dammit!_ Henry cursed, staggering to his feet. _This is getting out of control. What the heck did I…_

His thoughts were brought up short as his grey eyes fell upon a towering, humanoid creature wearing what looked to be green body armor and a horn-like structure fixed to its forehead, obscuring the place where eyes would normally be. A fanged, slathering mouth growled as it lashed out, destroying another tree in the process, his strikes narrowly missing Wizardmon as he leapt into the air and onto his staff. Sensing that distance would be a prudent course of action, the magical digimon flew back a ways, sending a stream of lightning at the creature.

_ADR-06,_ Henry identified, not liking this development. _A Horn Striker. Shit._ "Terriermon!"

"On it!" shouted the diminutive Rookie as he charged forward. A glow surrounded the two partners, and in an instant Terriermon's form sped up, becoming as a blur. Not wasting any time, he leapt into the air, shooting forward like a bullet and smashing into the Horn Striker. Terriermon bounced back, quickly noting that the Horn Striker was recovering rapidly from the attack.

"Hen-ry!" he shouted over his shoulder. "You're going to have to get me to go all out on this one!"

"No!" shouted Henry. "We can't afford to risk it! Just hang on! I'll try to stall it!"

Raising one hand outward, he closed it into a fist and then reopened it. At once, the ground beneath the Horn Striker collapsed beneath its weight, causing it to roar in anger and grab at the ground.

"That should do it," said Henry, breathing rather heavily. He wiped an arm over his forehead. Sweat stood out quite prominently and his face looked flushed. "Now all we need to do is…"

With a sudden surge of strength, the Horn Striker tore itself free from its trap and charged towards Terriermon. The Rookie leapt into the air, his ears expanding to provide him loft as he dodged the attack.

"Stallings not doing any good Henry!"

"Hang on! I'm thinking! I…"

A sudden blast of dirt fell over Henry, obscuring his vision and causing him to cough as he inhaled the dust. Doubling over, he fought through the pain in his lungs and stretched a hand out once more. With but a mental command the cloud of dirt blasted away, revealing the Horn Striker towering over him once more. Henry felt his eyes go wide in shock as he froze in place.

"HENRY!"

A burst of light filled the air as words were loosed from Terriermon's mouth.

"TERRIERMON! MATRIX DIGIVOLVE TOOO…"

A shell of data rapidly formed around Terriermon and his skin rapidly sheared off his body, revealing a wireframe. It grew and expanded as new implements were added. Guns were affixed to his hands along with an ammunition belt and a set of trousers. Data fell over the wireframe, restoring skin and texture to his body.

But the change didn't stop there. Gridlines all along Terriermon—now his Champion form of Gargomon—glowed almost immediately and blasts shot off from his guns. His body disappeared and in its place was an emerald sphere. Metallic legs tore free from the sphere and a robotic torso exploded upward, followed quickly by a jet pack on his back, arms and a head with long, thin spikes shooting up from it. The transformation complete, Gargomon shouted his new name to the world.

"…RAPIDMON!"

The Horn Striker, sensing the sudden change in power, turned to greet the new foe. Rapidmon didn't waste any time. He flew forward at a speed far too quick for it to follow, slamming into it and grabbing hold. The jet pack fired and the pair burst into the air, away from Henry and a disoriented Wizardmon and Jeri. Henry looked back and forth between his digivice, Rapidmon, and Jeri before finally deciding to run over to where Jeri still stood. She had fallen down, a shocked and utterly horrified look on her face.

_Oh man, oh man… Please let this work. Please…_

"Jeri!" he called, falling down next to her and grabbing her by the shoulders. "Jeri! You've got to listen to me! Everything's okay! You've got to pull back and relax before…"

"Henry! Look out!"

The Tamer barely had time to grab Jeri and dive out of the way before narrowly avoiding getting shot in the back by a stream of energy blasts. One of the shots still managed to catch him though, singing the side of his arm as it passed by. Henry bit back a hiss of pain and clamped an arm over the burn and looked up. He did not like what he saw.

It looked like a purple sheet with a pumpkin-like face. Encircling it were a number of spheres, each emblazoned with the same, soulless, pumpkin face on its surface. In spite of this rather alien appearance, a humanoid appearance, at least so far in the basic shape, still found its way into the creature's form, just as with the last one. Only in this case, where arms and legs should have been, four, cruel-looking scythes descended from the cloth.

_ADR-03,_ Henry hastily identified. _Pendulum Feet. This is not good._

"Wizardmon…" Henry rasped, getting to his feet.

**"Magical Game!"**

**...**

Rapidmon flew as high as he could go—no easy task considering the fact that the Horn Striker weighed at least a ton and struggled every step of the way—before being smacked across the face. The rabbit-dog-now-turned-android saw stars explode across his face and felt something crack in his armor, but he managed to hold on and prevent himself from losing consciousness. Spinning in midair he let the creature go, watching shards of his armor fall away along with it. Normally, Rapidmon would have been content to let gravity take care of the rest, but he knew that this monster was not one to simply release to the whims of fate and nature. Missiles rolled up into the firing tubes placed inside his arms and he took aim.

**"Rapid…FIRE!"**

Immediately the missiles burst free from their compartments and flew towards their target, impacting with ferocious force. The creature howled in pain as it plummeted into the park, disappearing in an explosion of shattered tree limbs. Rapidmon was not done though, and he surged forward, arms outstretched and legs locked together. Green energy gathered at the tips before an emerald triangle appeared in front of him.

**"Tri-Beam!"**

The triangle shot out and slammed into the area where the Horn Striker had crashed, kicking up still more dust and sending wooden shrapnel flying in every direction. Rapidmon flew over the scene of destruction, trying to see through the cloud of debris for any sign of the Horn Striker.

He was rewarded as a massive hand launched out of the cloud and grabbed hold of his torso, crushing brutally around his armor.

_"AAAHHH!"_ Rapidmon shrieked, not caring how it might have sounded. Pain exploded all along his body as he felt armor simply collapse under the force of his opponent's fingers. As he continued to scream, he saw the Horn Striker rear out of the broken forest, larger than ever before.

_Stupid! Stupidstupidstupid! I forgot that these guys just get larger when they're injured! Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap…_

The pressure of the Horn Striker's hand intensified and Terriermon felt his body cave in completely. Data burst away, shattering into clumps until finally, only the limp, diminutive form of Terriermon fell out of it and struck the ground below.

"Ooogh… Anybody get the name of the Truckmon that hit me…?" he groaned, rolling over onto his back, ever spot on his body sore. He saw the Horn Striker towering over him and despair filled him utterly. "Oh… That's right. It wasn't even a Truckmon at all…"

The Horn Striker started to reach down towards him, fingers outstretching until…

_Gone._

_ Huh?_ Terriermon sat up, surprised at the sudden disappearance of the Horn Striker from this level of reality. "What the heck just happened?"

Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Terriermon rose to his feet and ran off in the direction that he left Henry at, hoping beyond hope that his partner was not getting himself killed.

**…**

Wizardmon moaned as he lay on the ground, having been utterly defeated by the Pendulum Feet. Henry, for his part, fared no better, as he leaned against a tree, one hand clasped around his leg and a pained expression on his face.

_Guess I should be lucky that I managed to deflect that blast at all,_ he thought. _Just a second later and there wouldn't have been any way I could 'wish' that shot's effect away._

The question though was, would he still be able to do so later?

Better question. Would he get the chance?

"Jeri!" he rasped, his head rolling in the girl's direction. _"Jeri!"_

The girl just sat there, her whole body trembling uncontrollably. She looked completely paralyzed with fear, and the look on her face…

_It's like she's locked herself in a loop…_

"J-Reaper," he tried again. "You've got to do something! Jeri can't! She's stuck right now! She…"

A flash of light and Henry ducked just in time to avoid getting his head shot off. Gasping, pain ripped through his injured leg and he bit back a cry of pain. "J-Reaper…"

_Dammit! What am I thinking? She can't do anything! This is Jeri's mind! This is _all_ Jeri's mind! J-Reaper can't do anything without…_

The sound of a weapon powering up filled the air, and Henry knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that unless he reached Jeri now, wishes or not, he was going to be dead. He had to reach her _now!_ He had to…

"Digi-Modify! Machinedramon's Giga Cannon activate!"

His head snapping around at the words, Henry had just enough time to see an orb of white light encompass the Pendulum Feet before overwhelming it in a blinding fury of fire. A deafening explosion ripped through the park and Henry covered his head. He could only ride it out.

After what felt like an eternity, quiet again filled Shinjuku Park and Henry lifted his head to find Takou Yamasaki standing before him, a massive energy cannon sprouting from his forearm and lying against the ground. A pained look crossed Takou's face as he clutched at the limb.

"Damn it, Henry!" he grated. "I _told_ you this would happen!"


	15. Warning and Imprisonment

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 15/ Warning and Imprisonment

_Floating…again._

Takato didn't want to open his eyes. The sensation of him floating told him that something was up—that he was dreaming again, and not the normal kind of dream either. It was the same kind of dream that he had when he first saw the Digimon Queen. The kind that showed him things in the waking world.

To say that he was starting to dislike the ambiguity of their meanings and the uncertainty that they now brought into his life was an understatement. Curious, yes, but they brought too many things into his little corner of the world that, while he 'dreamt' them, were the sort of things that he didn't quite believe in either. In spite of his mother's belief to the contrary, Takato always knew that there was a rigid dividing line between his dreams and reality. That was how things were, and that was how they were certain to remain.

Until, that is, until his dreams started to take on a frightening reality to them.

Against his will, Takato's eyes cracked open. He was floating in the air, as he had been before. Only this time he was hanging somewhere over Shinjuku Park. He could barely see the trees, obscured as they were by the shadows of nighttime, but the lights that marked the paths more than made up for it. Takato was intimately familiar with the park. Kazu often said that he would never get lost even if he was blind and deaf and, in his own words, 'on top of being dumb'.

_Thanks a lot for that, Kazu,_ Takato's mind grunted.

He cast his eyes around, trying to figure out why he had been brought here. As if in response to his unspoken questions, a massive shape blurred past him, causing the wind to whip by him like a hurricane, nearly blasting him away. His eyes tracked the figure, almost losing it in the darkness and only catching it by the bare slivers of light reflecting off it.

_Them?_

Takato narrowed his eyes. There appeared to be two figures, not one, struggling in midair. One of them had large…ear-like structures and elf-like shoes attached to it, while the other Takato could barely make anything out of, except that it appeared vaguely humanoid. The other, the one with the shoes and ears looked a bit familiar.

_Who are they?_

As if in response to his question, Takato's vision of the world blurred, and in an instant he found himself hovering at point blank range between the two combatants. The one with the ears and shoes he immediately recognized as an Ultimate level digimon known as Rapidmon. The fanboy in him rose up almost immediately and a smile spread across his face.

It was quickly dashed as the Rapidmon's opponent, a creature that Takato didn't recognize at all, smashed him across the face with one powerful blow. The Rapidmon responded to the blow by spinning in midair and dropping his opponent. His arms rose suddenly and a green triangle of energy lashed out, connecting with the unknown with explosive force. Takato found himself cheering triumphantly, punching the air with one fist. The Rapidmon was winning!

As he watched, another explosion from deeper down in the park caught his attention, and just like that he was pulled in its direction, appearing on the scene almost before he even knew that he had done so.

A scythe-like arm tore through Takato, and he gave a shout of surprise at the unexpected brutality and suddenness of the attack. He fell backward, his hands flying up to his chest reflexively, only to astound him when they came upon nothing but his unbroken pajamas. His confusion washed away by the sensation of relief he looked up to track the unexpected attacker and found it doing battle with what he immediately recognized as a Wizardmon…and someone else. A boy, around his age, who was holding some sort of device—_A digivice?_ a part of him wondered—and it was glowing with enough light to disperse the shadows around him, making it almost appear as day, revealing…

_"Jeri!" _Takato exclaimed in surprise, seeing the girl standing at a long length of stairs leading up a hill. _What is she doing here? She's in danger! She…_

The scythe monster brutally cut into Wizardmon and then a strange, pumpkin like sphere shot out from behind it, shooting a beam of crimson energy at the boy. The boy aimed his device at the beam and, for just a moment, Takato could have sworn that he saw the beam actually _bend_ away from him. Whether it did or not didn't matter in the end, as the beam's course stabbed through the boy's leg, sending him crashing back against the tree behind him. He bit down on his lip, desperately trying to keep from crying out in pain while his hands clutched his leg. Surprisingly, no blood burst from the wound, though Takato, in his current state, didn't even notice.

_"Jeri!" _he cried out again, trying to get closer to the girl, but for some reason his dream movement was not cooperating at all anymore. He was stuck; frozen in place. Unable to do anything more than float and watch as the scene unfolded._ "Jeri! You've got to get out of here! You've got to get out of…"_

_ Why are her eyes glowing?_

"J-Reaper!" shouted the boy, still clutching at his injured leg. The name caused Takato's eyebrows to rise in surprise at the name. "You've got to do something! Jeri can't! She's stuck right now! She…"

The scythe monster zeroed in on the boy, and its powerful lasers began to charge up again.

_"Look out!"_ Takato shouted desperately to the boy. _Henry!"_

The laser's power buildup reached a crescendo and it cut loose. Through sheer force of will born of desperation, Takato began to force himself forward. As he did so, gravity began to assert control over his form. He felt his feet touch down on the cold, dirt ground; felt the grass tickle at his feet and a hard rock press against his exposed skin. That didn't matter to him though. All that mattered was that he do something…_anything._

Suddenly a dark cloud enveloped Takato and his vision of the world disappeared, only to return within moments in a completely different place. Takato spun around, half-panicking as the dark cloud dispersed around him, whipping back and forth like a specter before surging upward, assuming a humanoid figure that stood about a foot or two above him.

"Wha…What's going on?" he stammered, backing away from the shadow creature—_thing—_a bit fearfully. "Hey! Where am…? Ah!"

Takato tripped on the bare floor and fell flat on his rear, the impact drawing a pained _"Owww…"_ from his lips. The shadow entity merely observed him for a moment, allowing him a chance to recover before bending down before him, clouds of darkness flying away from its form like smoke.

_"Not…enough time,"_ the shadow creature whispered to him. _"Sorry. My power is…strongest here. It's the only way I could communicate with you best."_

"Huh?" Takato blinked in surprise. "You can talk?"

A light emerged from the shadow's 'head', and one of them winked at him, as if in amusement.

_"Of course."_

"What's going on? What happened back there? Where…"

The creature held up a hand—three fingers—in a silencing gesture.

_"I don't have enough time. Please, listen. And don't talk. If you wake up the inhabitants of this house it will only…"_

A light clicked on in the room.

_"…complicate things."_

Takato spun around, and found a girl in striped pajamas with long red hair touching the tips of her shoulders in one, thick plate, glaring venomously at him.

"Uh…I suppose you're wondering what's happening here…"

**…**

Rika Nonaka had not been having a good night's rest. Her day aside, which had been fraught with enough problems already, her dreams were now being plagued with the same kind of strangeness that disrupted her match against the 'Little Boy'.

Maybe it had been because of what the Little Boy had said to her, about seeing her in a dream, that led to her rest being disturbed in such a way. She didn't know for sure, and under normal circumstances wouldn't even have cared. But the dream that she had was…unsettling to say the least, particularly in its realism.

Such had been her thinking when she woke up in her room.

She rose up in her futon, her heart pounding in her chest and she looked around her, heavily disoriented. It took her a moment to realize that she was home.

_Just a dream,_ she thought, relaxing in her blanket. She frowned. _All just a stupid dream._

She lay back, pulling her blanket back over her, hoping to fall back to sleep quickly. However, she was to be denied, as the grip of the dream held firmly to her. She closed her eyes in protest, but all she saw was the flash of a laser as its owner, a cloaked monster with scythes for arms sighted on the boy—a boy that she had never seen before (and was grateful for as he was not the freak of a Little Boy that pestered her earlier today) and prepared to fire. That alone had been pretty bad, but what was more was the name that she shouted as she felt fear for the first time in a long while towards someone other than her immediate family.

_Henry…_ A part of her whispered. _Just how did I know his name?_

She shoved the thought to the back of her mind. She didn't care. It was just a dream, so she didn't have to be concerned about it. Why should she, for something that didn't exist? It was…well, in her own words…

_Stupid. It's just a dream. I can come up with anything I think of. That creep from this morning probably wanted to meet me and he ended up dreaming it. And that weird cloud thing from this morning has probably got me all worked up._

And yet something about the dream continued to bother her. The brown-haired girl…

_Jeri…_ Her mind whispered with great concern, as though a deeper part of her recognized who she was and just what she was going through. Annoyance seething in her veins, Rika sat up._ I'm thirsty. I need to get something to drink._

Crawling out of her futon, Rika pushed back the sliding door to her room and padded down towards the kitchen. She didn't turn on a single light, having long since gotten used to the absence of light and lacking in any fear of darkness whatsoever.

_That girl…_ Rika scowled as she found her mind returning to the dream once again._ Who was she? _

_She's no one,_ she told herself firmly—triumphantly even._ And same for that friend of hers…this 'Henry' or whatever his name is. They're both no one._

She pulled a small glass from a cupboard and poured herself some water. She shook her head to get the hair out of her eyes and tipped her head back, taking a drink. The water flowed over her tongue, cool and refreshing. She started to feel better; more rested.

_So why does it feel like I know them?_ her mind snuck in, and all at once a flash of pain jarred her head, causing Rika to drop her glass onto the counter and clutch at the sides of her head.

"Ugh…" she groaned, clenching her teeth together, refusing to let the pain have any amount of satisfaction at hurting her. A series of images flashed through her mind, threatening to drown her. First an image of her sitting on some steps with the girl, Jeri, in the middle of the park (_how did I know it was the park?)_, showing her some digimon cards and giving her some tips on the game. Another image, this time much, _much_ more powerful, of a lion warrior—a Leomon—getting skewered on the claw of another digimon, a Beelzemon. Leomon was roaring in pain and she felt horror flash through her body. But that horror was as nothing compared to the scream coming from Jeri as though something within her just snapped.

The images in her head swirled faster and faster in her mind, becoming increasingly real to the point where she felt as though her reality was about to be replaced by them.

_(Oh no! Kyubimon please get up! You have to get away! These stupid cards are useless! I can't do anything!)_

Rika bit her lip as her body shuddered. _Oh no! No! Not that. Anything but that…_

_ (How could you? How could you…do this HORRIBLE THING?)_

Rika cracked her violet eyes open, focusing on the cup as it rolled in a half-hazard manner on the countertop. "It's…not…real."

As though the words held some kind of insurmountable truth to them, the images vanished all at once, as did the voices that had come with them. Rika stood there for a moment, so caught up in the unexpected silence that she almost didn't notice the glass rolling off the counter. Moving like lightning, she caught the cup before it even reached halfway to the floor and she stood back up, looking at it as though for the first time.

"Just…what is going on here?" she wondered aloud.

A low thump and something that sounded like a grunt caught her attention. Placing the cup quietly on the table, Rika began to move forward, careful not to make so much as a single sound. As she did so, inching so quietly that she could not even hear her feet on the bare floor, she heard voices speaking aloud.

"Huh? You can talk?"

Rika raised an eyebrow at the voice. It sounded eerily familiar. An image of the boy from the tournament sprang to mind, only this time with a ridiculous pair of goggles on his head, but she quickly banished it. She would keep her expectations low until she knew for certain what was going on. As she closed in, she grabbed the cordless phone from off the receiver. The emergency number for the police was on speed dial right beneath the power button. It would only take a second to call who she needed if there was any trouble.

_"Of course."_

Another voice, this time even more familiar, and it almost caused Rika to halt dead in her tracks. Her breath caught in her throat.

"What's going on? What happened back there? Where…"

_Keep moving,_ Rika told herself. The voices were louder now. They were coming from the living room. All she needed to do was turn on the lights to see who it was.

_I should just call the cops,_ a wiser part of herself said, but for the moment she didn't listen. A deeper side pushed her onward. She had to see who was talking. She had to see…

_"I don't have enough time. Please, listen."_ Rika was now at the edge of the living room. Her hands, quiet, snaked up the wall to find the light switch._ "And don't talk. If you wake up the inhabitants of this house it will only…"_

She flipped the light on and the Little Boy from this morning, wearing what looked to be dull-colored, plain pajamas spun around in surprise. And behind him was a cloud of eerie black smoke.

_"…complicate things,"_ the second voice finished, though Rika could not see who it was that was talking. The cloud behind the Little Boy billowed and convulsed as it saw her.

"Uh…" began the boy, his tone timid, yet trying to sound more confident than it actually was. "I suppose you're wondering what's happening here…"

_"You!"_ she grated, stepping forward and, much to her surprise, unmindful of the black smoke that looked like a person. Before she could say or do anything else, the smoke wrapped around the boy and the two vanished into thin air, leaving Rika standing in an empty room, holding the phone, stunned at what just happened.

**…**

Takato found himself dumped unceremoniously to the ground as the black smoke parted from his vision. He shivered as he found that they were back in the park. The cold night air hit him and he hugged his arms closely around his body. He turned towards the black smoke, questions again forming on his mouth.

"Uh…you're probably tired of me saying this…but, what…?"

_"No more time left,"_ the smoke cut over him. Its voice, feminine, Takato realized that now, sounded tired and exhausted, as though it had spent itself just getting him here.

_It…she did say that her power was strongest at that house. That…girl's house._ Takato 's face scrunched up contemplatively. _Just who was she? She looked kinda familiar. Like that girl from the tournament, only with her hair down._

A pause and he shook his head mentally.

_No way. It can't be. Although…probably not the best way to be remembered. Great. As if my life wasn't complicated enough already._

_ "No more time left,"_ the smoke repeated wearily and sunk to the ground.

"Hey!" Takato exclaimed, his natural tendency of being concerned for others overriding what little sense of self-preservation he had left. "Hey, are you all right."

"_Just…listen." _It raised a cloudy hand and began to trace a symbol in the ground. First a triangle, followed by another three connected at its corners. It connected the three with a ring and then tapped it meaningfully.

_A…hazard sign?_ Takato wondered.

_"This…"_ the voice from the smoke said. Takato noticed that its form was starting to break apart; becoming transparent. _"This power can break down the walls of reality. Takato… You are not…ready. If you find this symbol…if you see it…_

The cloud's voice trailed off and Takato reached out desperately to try and get whatever information he could. For some reason he felt as though it were dangerously important that he do so.

"If I see it? What then? What do I do If I see…whatever it is? Why is it important? Why…?"

A gust of air cut off all questions, dispersing the smoke creature and leaving Takato alone, as though it had never been there. He held empty air for a moment, unable to shake off the strange turns that his life had taken…

…and why it felt as though this were not the first time for him either.

**…**

"Well…this is just dandy," Takou sighed as he flexed his arm, now free from the massive Giga Cannon that it had been a part of mere minutes ago. "The suits are not going to take this incident lying down."

"Will you be okay?" asked Henry from over where he stood by Jeri's side. The girl had become unresponsive ever since Takou arrived on the scene, and her eyes had a listless, empty look about them.

_Reality shock,_ Henry mused._ Her memories from two worlds clashed and she was unprepared for it. I hope I can get her out of it without any trouble._

"Henry," continued Takou. "Right now I'd be more worried about yourself if I were you. I'll find a way to get around this, but in all likelihood you're the one who's going to experience problems." He glanced over at Jeri. "Her too. Probably more so because of what Terriermon and I just finished nuking."

Henry hesitated a moment before nodding in agreement. "I understand." A pause. "Takou. I think you're going to have to let me know something about…" he thought quickly to recall the name embossed on the card Takou gave him earlier in the day. "…Pandora. Just what should I be expecting?"

Takou frowned. "I…can't tell you a whole lot right now. At least not after this incident. They'll be watching. You'll have to stay out of sight and out of mind until the heat blows over and…"

He cursed as his DART device suddenly began beeping. Pulling it out, he activated the screen.

"…and they're calling me right now. Shit." Takou ran a hand through his hair, looking as though he had been cornered. He glanced up at Henry. "Look. I've got to go. I can't delay this for very long. Just remember what I said: stay out of trouble. Stay low. You've got history dodging government agent types after all. Don't attract attention and you'll be fine."

"Will I be able to contact you or Akari?" he asked.

"One of us will. And if not, there'll be someone. But I wouldn't trust them. Anyway, I've got to get going. If I delay too long, they're likely to haul my ass over to them themselves and I don't… Oh shit!"

A glow surrounded Takou all of a sudden, and his face melted into one of shock before he disappeared from view completely.

_Going, going, gone._

"Wow," came the exhausted voice of Terriermon from where he sat. "That guy really knows how to make an exit, even if it is forced."

Henry glared at his partner. "Terriermon…"

"Oh, momentai, Henry," Terriermon casually rebutted as he nursed his injuries. "I get the feeling that we're going to need it."

**…**

A/N: And that takes care of another chapter for Reset. Next chapter we'll be looking at the consequences of Takato's 'occurrence' (and not just because he got pulled over to Rika's house) and ditto for Takou's actions. Which also means that either next chapter or the one following it, Akari will be entering the stage. Until then.

-Crazyeight


	16. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Reset

Chapter: 16/ Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow…

Takou stood beneath a beam of light in the middle of a sea of darkness. Not in the literal sense—that was a world all its own actually—but more in the fact that there was nothing but darkness around him. His captors—his superiors—weren't darkness incarnate. As far as he knew they weren't bad people either. But they did have a flare for the dramatic, and when they had power over someone, they wanted that person to know it.

So there was darkness around him, and a light over him. For the moment.

A red light winked on in the darkness surrounding him and Takou stood at attention.

_"Takou Yamasaki,"_ spoke a voice coming from the direction of the red light._ "Agent 14. Former member of Program 'Pandora's Box'. Non-Tamer and formerly a noncombatant. Secondary programmer and Designer. Currently a holder of one of the DART Devices."_

"Hello, Di," Takou said. "Do we need the preamble?"

A blue light appeared from next to the red light.

_"A bit unconcerned, isn't he?"_ asked the newcomer, this time in a feminine voice. There was a slight, amused tone to her words.

_Tri…_ Takou's eyes narrowed. _She doesn't normally show up to things like this. Things must be worse than I thought._

Two more lights winked on; a green and an orange. Takou tapped the sides of his pants anxiously for a moment before forcing his fingers to be still. The last thing he wanted was to appear nervous.

_"This meeting will be called to order,"_ said the orange light, this one a male voice, full of authority. _"Good 'evening' Takou Yamasaki."_

"Good evening, Mono," nodded Takou. "How are we going to do this?" He glanced up at the light that surrounded him ominously.

_"We would like to know what required you to use your DART Device to such an extreme,"_ spoke the orange light Takou had addressed as 'Mono'. _"I think that will do for starters."_

Takou raised an eyebrow. Mono's voice laughed. _"Of course, we will be monitoring you for any attempts at deception."_

_ "I would like to know a good deal many other things," _said the green light in a prissy, highly annoyed tone with an indiscernible gender. _"The large scale use of the DART Device aside, he has reactivated Henry Wong. That is…dangerous. He might as well have brought Ryo Akiyama back, or reactivated Takato Matsuki. In fact, it is the former's activities that I am concerned with. According to Akari's reports…"_

_ "Why don't we just let him explain himself, Tetra,"_ suggested Mono calmly. His light pulsed in Takou's direction, as if indicating for him to begin.

"Concerning my use of the DART Device," Takou started, phrasing his words carefully. "Henry was going to investigate a possible Id disturbance. Given that he had Terriermon with him, as per his desire to have his partner with him…"

_"Dangerous. Foolish."_ Two of the lights bobbed up and down to the green one's words. Takou nodded in agreement.

"Which was why I had to move things ahead the way I did. Recent events have brought me under question by my 'superiors' at Hypnos, preventing me from acting."

_"Your actions were no less dangerous or foolish,"_ snapped Tetra's light angrily. _"Already the human world is experiencing the backwash of your time manipulation!"_

"And risk Henry's death?"

_"The effects of an Id's presence obscures our vision,"_ said Mono's light. _"Can you provide us with any details?"_

Takou hesitated for a fraction of a second. This was where what he said could change things for good or bad.

"Not much, I'm afraid," he said carefully. "Suffice to say that Henry _was_ in danger of being killed. I had to act before I could properly analyze the target."

_ "Which could very well have been the result of your time manipulation to begin with!"_ snapped Tetra's light again, flaring slightly.

_"Calm yourself,"_ eased Di's red light, dimming. _"He has been honest with us so far."_

_ "But reckless!"_ Tetra flared in emerald fire._ "He is obstinate. He cannot be trusted when it comes to the Tamers. I said so from the beginning! This is the result of his interaction with the Tamers. He must be replaced."_

_ "I'm afraid I must concur,"_ said Di, the voice sounding rather sad at the admission.

_"I'll go with that,"_ chuckled Tri. Di's light flared in her direction.

_"You would."_

_ "Enough of that,"_ said Mono. _"Takou. Concerning Takato… You know how dangerous he is. His potential, particularly when paired with the Digital Hazard…"_

"I am…_was…_investigating the matter. Henry knows about it as well. He can do more about it than I can. He knows Takato better than me."

_"True. However, further analysis of the data must be made, and the results of your actions have so far proven damaging, and will continue to do so in the near future. At this time, I'm afraid we will have to put you on administrative leave while we investigate further. You will make no further contact with the Tamers or interact with them in any way, shape, or form. We _will_ be monitoring you, to make sure that you comply, and your DART Device will be confiscated."_

Takou clenched his hands into tight fists for a second before releasing them.

"All right. I guess if there's no other choice…"

_"Please remember,"_ eased Mono's light, _"that this is only a temporary arrangement. You will be allowed to maintain your position inside Hypnos and assist them as necessary. Continue your monitoring. Once our analysis is complete, and everything is in order, you will be reinstated."_

_ "But only _if_ everything is in order,"_ sniffed Tetra's light angrily._ "If there is something amiss…"_

"I know," said Takou. "It's not like the world will notice anyway."

_"Very well. We will return you to your home once you have relinquished your DART Device."_

Takou silently dug into his pocket and retrieved the device. Holding it out before the four lights, a second beam of light reached out and lifted it into the air, where it disappeared. The cone of light that shone down on Takou abruptly turned off, leaving the four lights alone with each other as they returned Takou to the human world.

_"Why didn't you press him for more details?" _asked Di to Mono after a moment. _"He's hiding something even now."_

_ "Even _I_ can tell he's hiding something,"_ laughed Tri. _"Not that I care of course…"_

_"Give someone enough rope, and they will inevitably hang themselves,"_ replied Mono simply as the cone of light reappeared before them, though as yet no one stood in it. _"At any rate, Takou's temporary replacement will be someone who is close enough to monitor him without our needing to interfere too much. We can trust her."_

_ "Considering what she's told us so far, perhaps,"_ huffed Tetra. _"But she's too close to him. I think we should send someone else."_

_ "Well someone send _someone_," _laughed Tri. _"I would like to get home at some point tonight and enjoy a good night's sleep. I don't appreciate being pulled out of bed for this sort of thing."_

_ "Very well,"_ said Mono. _"Agent 15, if you would step forward please?"_

A pair of large, yellow-trimmed sneakers stepped into the cone of light, the shadows disappearing off knee-high socks and a pair of suspenders with one belt hanging loosely before their owner stood fully revealed. Bright, feminine, amber eyes, framed between dark reddish, almost brown hair tied into two spiky tufts of hair hanging at the base of the girl's neck.

"Akari Hinomoto, reporting for duty," the girl said, placing one hand on her hip and smiling dutifully.

**…**

Rika Nonaka was not happy.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she would have had a hard time saying that she looked angry, but she was. She spent most of her life cultivating a cool exterior, so that no one could tell what she was thinking. No one, not even her grandmother had an idea what went through her mind, and she much preferred it that way. Unintentionally it helped her in her games, but it was an asset that she used throughout her daily life as well. She looked away from her reflection in the bathroom mirror and put some toothpaste on her toothbrush. Lifting the brush to her teeth, she began to scrub, but with a little bit more force than was the norm.

No. Not happy did not describe it. Angry…no. That wasn't it either. _Livid_ was just perfect. Yes. Livid was it.

But that did not change a thing about how utterly and completely confused she was at the same time.

_I keep running into this one kid, and weird things happen. First he talks about seeing me in a dream, than there's that freak explosion. And then…_

Her house. He was in _her_ house, and then gone, as if he were spirited away by some kind of magic.

_That's stupid. Magic doesn't exist. No one can see dream about things they don't know about, and people don't just disappear into thin air. The only thing that makes sense is that I was sleepwalking._

_ Except…I never did that in my entire life. And it felt so real._

Rika's eyes narrowed, showing the first touch of emotion that she allowed to be revealed all morning so far…since she just woke up that is, which hadn't been long. She was getting the distinct feeling that this was going to be one of those mornings.

_I'm going to get to the bottom of this,_ she thought, forcefully scraping her brush against her teeth. _One way or another. If I have to spend all day to do it, I'll find that kid and make him talk._

The thought didn't make her feel any better. In all honesty she wanted to have as little to do with the strange boy as possible, but his invasion of her home, accidental or not, touched a nerve, and the strange way that he departed sparked her curiosity as much as it angered her. She didn't know where he lived or hung out, but she was sure about one thing: Shinjuku Park was where she was going to start.

Finishing brushing her teeth, she exited the bathroom and headed toward her room. As she did so, she passed by the living room, where her mother was sitting, calmly drinking a cup of tea. Spying her daughter, her eyes lit up.

"Rika!" she called out. "Good morning!"

"Mmmnnn…" Rika groaned under her breath. She tossed a wave over her shoulder to at least acknowledge that she heard her mother, but quickened her pace ever so slightly so that she could be out of sight, and hopefully out of mind, before the woman could think to do or say anything else.

It seemed that she wasn't going to have anything of it though, as she heard her dress rustling, signaling that she was getting up from her spot.

"Rika, could you come here for a minute? I'd like to talk to you about something."

Rika drew to a reluctant halt, tightening her hand into one fist. _Terrific…_

**…**

_Well…this is just great._

In the alley outside his home, Takato looked up from behind a cardboard box, a miserable, dispirited look on his face.

His evening had been a good one.

_Locked outside, having realistic dreams, and being kidnapped by some weird shadow thing,_ he thought for what had to be the millionth time. _I'm going crazy. That's just all there is to it. I'm just…going crazy._

He shivered in spite of the warm, summer morning air and clutched his arms around himself. There was certainly enough evidence weighing in the opposite direction. After all, he _was_ stuck outside without a key.

_Even if I slept-walked, there's just no way I could have made it all the way down to the park without someone seeing me. It's just…impossible. Before summer was let out we were told that they were increasing police patrols in the area because people kept seeing weird things in there. I…_

Takato became rigid as he heard the side-door being unlocked. He debated briefly as to what he should do and then ducked down behind the cardboard box just in time to avoid being spotted by his father as he came outside.

_Oh man, oh man, oh man…_ his mind ranted in a near panic. _Don't let him find me here. This is already hard enough for me to explain to myself without having to involve my parents too._

He waited for what felt like an eternity before his father, humming a tune merrily to himself, went back into the bakery. Takato heaved a sigh of relief and got up from behind his hiding place. Scratching his unkempt hair, he started forward...and tripped over the cardboard box that had been his hiding place for the night, sending him sprawling to the ground with a sharp, but muffled cry. Rolling onto his back, Takato kicked the box away and got back up. As he did so, his breath caught in his throat as he spied something shining in the sliver of sunlight that snuck down the alley.

A pair of yellow-rimmed goggles.

Snatching them up before he could even think about it, Takato quickly pocketed them and raced toward the door—unlocked now that his parents were awake—and as quietly and quickly as he could, let himself in.

Takato held his breath as he closed the door shut with a quiet click and started to carefully sneak up the stairs. As he did so, he heard his mother speak.

"Takehiro?" she called out. Did you go out again?"

"No," Takato heard his father reply from somewhere in the kitchen. "Why?"

A pause, and Takato's lungs started to burn, having not yet left his lungs.

"Nothing," she said finally. "I must be hearing things."

Waiting no longer, Takato crept up another couple of stairs before tearing the rest of the way up and shutting himself in the clean—cleaner than the alley anyway—and cozy privacy of his bedroom.

**…**

Takato breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he shut the door behind him. He kneaded the carpet with his toes, rejoicing in the soft feel against his bare skin. They had not taken well to the hard outdoors, and staying outside for the remainder of the night in a back alley hadn't helped.

_But I'm back home now._

Somehow though, this did not leave him feeling very safe or relaxed.

_That shadow creature…_ Takato thought, refocusing his thoughts. _It just took me. It can take me from anywhere _to_ anywhere. And there's nothing I can do about it._

Takato felt a sense of helplessness fall over him and he forced himself to resist collapsing to the floor in defeat. It wasn't easy however. After all, what could he do against an entity that could spirit him away at will.

_Wait,_ he thought, remembering something. _She said that her power was stronger in that place she took me to. That girl's house._ He tapped one finger against his chin thoughtfully. _And…some of the things she said…_ His mind went back to the warning that the shadow creature gave him. About the Hazard Sign.

Scratching his head, Takato sauntered over to his desk and searched through its contents until he found what he was looking for; a drawing of a red dinosaur with a Hazard symbol emblazoned on its chest.

_Guilmon,_ he thought, frowning at the rough portrait of his made-up digimon._ How did she know about this. I mean…she _did_ know about this…right? There's no other way that she could have. I put this on Guilmon because I thought he would look cool with it, and that was only a few days ago._ He glanced in the direction of his window contemplatively._ Well, she is capable of going wherever she wants, but why does she think that this thing is dangerous? I mean…besides the obvious._

Takato thought over everything he knew about digimon, particularly in relation to the Digital Hazard. There was, sadly, not a whole lot of information available.

_As far as I know, it was just some mysterious force that got sealed away. It appears on some digimon like Lucemon for some reason, but that's about it. What makes it so special?_

No answer came to him.

_It's times like these that I wish I knew more about digimon beyond the TV show and the cards. _A pause and he found himself groaning. _And that sounded so dorky of me right now. Rika would probably call me out on it and… Wait. Who's Rika?_

That name had floated around in his mind before. Why?

Just as before, no answer came to him.

_This is nuts,_ he thought, sighing heavily in exasperation. _I'm nuts. Whoever this 'Rika' is, she would probably agree with me._

Another pause.

_Could that girl I saw in my dreams be Rika?_

The silence of his room told all.

_I really need to stop asking questions when I'm never going to get an answer,_ he commiserated, scratching his hair._ I've got to do something. Maybe if I asked the guys about this Digital Hazard thing I'll be able to get an answer. Kazu knows more about digimon than I do._

He looked at the symbol a moment longer before returning the drawing to his desk. As he turned to look for some clean clothes to wear, he failed to notice the burning light that traced its way across the symbol on his drawing.

**…**

"Do you think Takou is going to be all right?" asked Terriermon from his spot on Henry's bed.

"We probably won't be able to know for sure after what he did last night," replied Henry as he typed away on his computer. "Or rather 'yesterday'."

"Hmmm…so what are we going to do now?" Terriermon glanced over at Wizardmon, who was presently sleeping in a corner of the room rather inconspicuously. Although the Champion had cast a spell on himself to prevent people from noticing him, it didn't do Terriermon's confidence any good to know that he could _still_ see him, plain as daylight. "Are we going to check up on Jeri? See how she's doing?"

"That would be a good idea," replied Henry. "But we're going to have to be careful about it, especially since we're going to be working with whoever is substituting for Takou." Henry grimaced noticeably at that. The fact that he hadn't contacted him following his abduction had been very telling as to what had happened. "Right now I'm designing a program that should fool anyone who may be monitoring us."

"Is it a good idea for you to be saying that out loud?"

Henry paused and glanced at his partner, forcing a small, thin smile on his face.

"Don't worry about it," he said, returning to his work. "Fortunately we can count on the effects of Takou's actions to fog up their sensors a little. Of course, they'll be sure to compensate for that but still…"

"Hmmm…" Terriermon tapped his chin with one paw. "Well, if you're confident about it…"

He looked at Henry, who typed for a moment longer, chuckling a little.

"Momentai, Terriermon."

"Henry, if you're going to start saying that every time you do one of your experiments that may or may not work, I'm going to start to worry." He scowled and glanced back at Wizardmon again. "What are we going to do about him?"

"We'll need to put together a program that will debug him. Either that or turn him over to Takou's colleague's and have him returned to the digital world. It's just about the only thing we can do. He's not supposed to be here after all." Henry hit a button on his keyboard and stood up. "All right. I'm all set. Let's go see how Jeri's doing now."

**…**

Jeri Katou sat on the roof of her home, staring out around her at the children as they played in the summer sun below, laughing and playing. Jeri smiled at the sight, but the smile didn't touch her eyes.

_"Subject Jeri…"_ spoke up a voice in her mind. Jeri shuddered and hugged herself.

"Please don't call me that," she said, her voice quavering.

_"My apologies,"_ said the voice. _"I merely wished to speak to you."_

Jeri swallowed, tasting bile in her throat. "About…?"

_"To begin with, I must thank you for restoring some of my capabilities." _The air shimmered in front of Jeri and an image of herself, older, taller, materialized in view before her. _"Do not worry, the children below will not be able to see me. Henry has sent me a message. He will be arriving as soon as he possibly can."_ She tilted her head to one side for a moment. _"It will depend on traffic. He cannot afford to be seen using his abilities at this time. He also suggests that we be careful about our conversation. We may be being monitored even at this moment."_

Jeri looked down, pressing her lips together into one thin line. She swallowed again, tasting that distressing, acidic taste in the back of her mouth.

"Is…is that everything?"

The other girl…the J-Reaper, nodded. Jeri risked a glance before looking away._ How can she look so…empty inside?_

_ "I am afraid that is because of my artificial nature,"_ the visage of the J-Reaper replied to her unspoken question.

_"Don't_ read my mind!" Jeri snapped, looking up at the J-Reaper angrily. While anyone else would have been startled by the outburst, the J-Reaper merely observed her passively.

_"As you wish,"_ she replied. _"I can see that you are agitated. I will remove myself."_

The image of the taller girl—_thing—_vanished from sight and Jeri buried her face in her knees, biting back a harsh sob of relief.

_This…this is going to be so…hard to get through,_ she thought, her mind stammering through the words. _My memories are still scattered. The strongest ones are closer to surface—memories involving the D-Reaper and Leomon—but they're all over the place and I can't touch them all yet. Henry…_ She bit her lip and tried to get a hold of herself. _Henry said that should change after a while, but he didn't say how long that will be. Oh God…_ Jeri clenched her eyes shut tight for a moment before leaning backwards, taking deep, careful breaths. _Why did I have to wake up like this?_

She knew, of course, that she could get the answers faster if she asked the other part of her that resided in her head, but at the moment she didn't want to so much as _think_ about her, let alone look at her. She had enough of dealing with the agents of the D-Reaper, even if this 'version' only existed, in a cruel twist of fate, because she allowed it too. Yes… What she could remember, she remembered that much. It continued to exist because of her. Her and…something else. The world? No, that didn't feel right. Yet at the same time, it did…

Jeri groaned and tried to shut out all of her thoughts. Another wave of memories were surfacing. If she wasn't careful, they could overwhelm her as they did last night. And if that happened…

Jeri sat up with a jolt as she felt something _pass_ through her.

_What was that?_ she thought, her amber eyes snapping open. At once she felt the entity of her other self coming forward, looking alongside with her through her eyes, but as yet, taking no further action.

"J-Reaper," she found herself saying in spite of herself. Something…_someone_ older presently spoke with her lips, and not the twelve-year-old girl who was presently hurting from the chaos that her mind was unleashing. "What's going on?"

Her eyes blinked, and the amber shifted briefly to red. Jeri's view of the world changed, taking on a more computer-like appearance, complete with graphs and sensory data. She tilted her head to one side.

_"Insufficient data at this time,"_ the J-Reaper said in her mind. _"Should I send a scout to investigate?"_

"Please."

Raising one hand, Jeri opened her palm. A violet cord erupted from her skin and lashed outward. Light particles rushed forward at its end and formed a strange, grey-colored, bird-like entity. It rose into the air and Jeri blinked again. The sensory data that J-Reaper was showing her was changing rapidly. As she watched, the world shifted again, and then it was all she could do to prevent herself from falling to the side as everything warped and distorted.

"Ah! J-Reaper…!"

_"My apologies. Compensating…"_

Jeri's view of the world rapidly returned to normal, leaving her gasping in relief. "W-What was that?"

_"Spatial warping,"_ The J-Reaper replied calmly. _"The aftereffects of Takou's actions. I must warn you, at this point anything could happen. We will have to be on our guard, both with ourselves…"_

Jeri felt her head turn as J-Reaper focused on the children playing in the streets.

_"…and others."_

Around the children, space seemed to jump ever-so-slightly, as if to confirm the J-Reaper's warning. Or to tease its presence.

**…**

A/N: And this concludes another chapter for Reset. Takou has been relieved of duty and Akari has been revealed. Next chapter, the consequences of Takou's actions will be coming forth in full fury.

Concerning Takato's goggles…the original plan was for them to not appear in the story, but as I was writing Takato's scene (stuck outside and not wanting to explain to his parents what he was doing locked out in the middle of the night) it occurred to me that they could make a comeback. Let's face it. Takato isn't the same without them. :)

Until next chapter then.

-Crazyeight


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